Two brothers testified that their minister hit them with a belt.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) – Two teenage brothers testified Friday that their former minister spanked them with a belt when they failed to obey their mother.

The boys said they were in pain and asked the Rev. Walter Oliver to stop the beatings, but he refused.

Oliver, 66, of Beacon Falls, is charged with two counts of risk of injury to a minor and two counts of third-degree assault for the beatings, which took place in 2000.

He has acknowledged spanking the boys, but said he did it with their mother’s permission, following biblical commandments.

The boys said Oliver made them sign confessions that they misbehaved or did not do their chores. Sometimes he warned that they would be beaten, they said. Other times he took them to the third floor of his New Haven church, bent them over a chair and hit them with a belt.

When they resisted, they said Oliver would push them down and continue the beating.

“I had to pull my pants down and I got a spanking on my bare behind,” said Anthony Bailey, one of the boys.

“Did you ever tell Mr. Oliver this hurt?” prosecutor Brian Sibley asked.

“He said it was supposed to hurt,” Anthony replied.

Anthony, who is now 14, said the belt buckle left a mark on his leg after a beating in September 2000. The mark was photographed about three months later. It did not leave a scar.

Anthony recalled three specific beatings, in which he was hit five, 10 times and 20 times with the belt.

His brother, Marcus Bailey, now 15, could not recall a specific number of beatings.

Both boys said their mother did not witness the beatings, but said that they seemed to upset her. The brothers said they did not think it was right that a man who was not their father beat them.

The boys’ mother, Pamela Paige, also testified Friday. She said she gave Oliver permission to discipline her sons about a year after her husband died, when the boys refused to obey her.

She said she expected that he would spank them two or three times. When she found out how he beat them, she said she regretted giving him permission.

She once asked him to stop, she said, but he did not. She said she was too afraid to complain further.

“I wished I hadn’t given consent because I felt as though it had gone too far,” Paige said. “Instead of my sons getting better, they only got worse.”

Prosecutors rested their case Friday.

Under cross-examination, defense attorney Norm Pattis tried to show that Paige was accusing Oliver because the state Department of Children and Families was considering taking the boys from her.

Marcus had been arrested and had inappropriate contact with a girl, Paige acknowledged.

When the juvenile court ordered her to keep them under control, Pattis said, Oliver stepped in.

“Were you grateful for Mr. Oliver’s help?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

Paige also acknowledged giving different accounts to police following Oliver’s arrest.

Pattis said the mark on Anthony’s leg could have been caused from falling off his bike, from getting into fights or from beatings by his mother.

Paige denied causing the mark. Prosecutors granted her immunity in exchange for her testimony.

During an outburst in court, Paige said she never wanted the case to go to trial, but said she wanted Oliver to repay a $1,400 loan and wanted an apology for wrecking her car.

“You call yourself a pastor. You call yourself a Christian,” she shouted. “We are supposed to go to heaven together and we’re sitting here, judging each other.”

She denied testifying against Oliver because of the money: “$1,400 doesn’t make me sing like a bird.”

Pattis asked Superior Court Judge Eddie Rodriguez Jr. to order the six-member jury to disregard the outburst. The judge said he would make a decision Monday, when Pattis said he also would move to dismiss the charges.

Oliver originally was charged with second-degree assault, a felony, but the charge was reduced to third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, at the start of the trial Monday.

AP-ES-11-07-03 1858EST