Westland man charged with sexually assaulting boy at Wayne Moose Lodge

WAYNE – A Westland man who held a high-ranking position with the Wayne Knights of Columbus has been charged with sexually assaulting a young boy in 2018.

Paul Wheeler Sposite, 57, of Westland, was charged April 26, 29 with second-degree criminal sexual conduct (child under 13).^Th Wayne District Court. He was released on $25,000 bail.

Sposite’s next court date is still pending. His attorney, Scott Grabel, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The 2018 incident was investigated in 2018 but did not result in criminal charges. On the evening of September 8, 2018, the boy and his father and stepmother went to the Moose Lodge at 38050 Michigan Avenue.

The boy’s father told police Sposite was a family friend he had known for about a year, and they had been playing cards with several people all night. Toward the end of the night, his son was tired and leaned on Sposite, who rubbed his son’s cheek and hand, according to police records obtained by Hometown Life through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The child’s father told police that a group of four women sitting at a nearby table believed Sposite was behaving inappropriately and told the father. One of the women recorded some of Sposite’s actions on her phone, but the father found nothing inappropriate and asked her to delete the data.

A little over a week later, the father went to the police and said he wanted to inform them about the incident because he said his ex-wife, the mother of his son, would file a report.

According to police, the mother received a text message from a woman she previously did not know that alerted her to Sposite’s behavior.

Sposite was interviewed and confirmed to police that he rubbed the boy’s cheek and hand and was asked to stop by the child’s stepmother, according to the police report. He then left the club.

The child’s stepmother was also interviewed and told police she did not observe any inappropriate behavior.

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The boy’s mother told police that after she was made aware of Sposite’s actions at the club, she discovered several Facebook messages from Sposite to her son dating back to June 2018 that she believed were inappropriate.

A detective reviewed the saved Facebook messages and determined that Sposite and the boy had been in contact with each other day and night and that Sposite had asked the boy to get permission from his parents to visit his apartment.

On November 1, 2018, a detective interviewed Sposite, who said he would see the boy at events at the Wayne Knights of Columbus Club and rub his back or ear while watching movies with him and his family. He said he was never alone with the boy. Sposite told police he never touched children inappropriately, but admitted he could understand why people might misinterpret his Facebook conversations and physical contact with the boy.

When the detective asked him if he wanted to mention anything that might be uncovered in the investigation, Sposite said he had been accused in the past.

Sposite told the detective that the matter was resolved by attending counseling.

The interview with Sposite was the final documentation of the police investigation in 2018. The case was closed at that time. More than three years later, on April 1, 2022, the father of the boy from the Moose Lodge incident returned to the lobby of the Wayne Police Department and said his son provided more information about the events of September 8, 2018.

The boy said he was at the bar getting a soda when Sposite came up behind him, reached into his underwear and touched his penis for “a few minutes.” The boy ran outside to escape Sposite.

He also disclosed that Sposite had touched him inappropriately before the September night at Wayne’s Moose Lodge in Dearborn Heights.

The police resumed the investigation.

The police submitted their investigation to the public prosecutor’s office on May 31, 2022.

Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Jacob Bloemers approved an arrest warrant for Sposite on second-degree sexual assault charges on April 25, nearly two years later. Sposite was arrested the same day at the Knights of Columbus Notre Dame Hall.

Sposite was listed and pictured as the organization’s Grand Knight on the Wayne Knights of Columbus website Friday morning. However, Pat O’Neil, associate grand knight of Notre Dame Hall, said that is no longer the case.

“He’s no longer a knight,” O’Neil said Friday from Sposite. “When the Supreme Knights learned of the charges, he was fired – literally hours after we were contacted by the Wayne Police Department.”

In addition to his bail, Sposite was ordered to wear a GPS mount and was prohibited from leaving the state, having contact with the victim or minor children, or returning to the Wayne Moose Lodge or the Wayne Knights of Columbus.

Contact reporter Susan Bromley at [email protected] or 517-281-2412.

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