COLORADO SPRINGS, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Ted Haggard, the prominent Colorado evangelical leader accused of having sex with a male prostitute, admitted Friday that he received a massage.
Haggard denied a sexual relationship with an escort when he spoke briefly to reporters gathered outside his home, the Rocky Mountain News reported. The founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., was accused of paying a gay prostitute for sex.
Michael Forest Jones also claims that he obtained methamphetamine for the minister, while Haggard says he bought some once out of curiosity and threw it away.
Saying he could not continue to minister in the face of such accusations, Haggard, 50, placed himself of administrative leave at his church and resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Jones failed a lie detector test Friday, the Denver Post reported. But John Kresnik, who administered the polygraph, said the results may have been skewed because Jones was suffering from a migraine headache and had only two hours sleep.
