THE PULPIT: Haggard scandal will always haunt Mike Jones

Mike Jones has moved on from the Ted Haggard scandal: In January, for instance, he became a full-time student, studying home health care in Denver.

But he is also realistic.

"It's like a cancer I can't escape," Jones said. "I will forever be tied to this story."
Some people say that's how Jones wants it.

Jones, 51, granted dozens of interviews after he outed Haggard in November 2006 as a client of his Denver male escort business. He co-wrote a book about his dalliances with Haggard and went on a national book tour.

He routinely shocked the public with blunt comments, such as when he did a radio interview and proclaimed that he and Haggard engaged in "gay sex."

Yet Jones told me he sometimes wishes he had kept quiet about it all.

Some of the gay community has ostracized him, he said. He had no support system as the media and critics mocked his lifestyle and questioned his motivation for going public, sending him into deep depression.

He became financially strapped as his massage and personal training businesses lost clients (he had given up the escort business prior to the Haggard scandal). He ended up losing his apartment and crashing on friends' couches for months, Jones said.

His book deal amounted to only $15,000, he said.

"I hated writing the book," Jones told me. "The only part that was cathartic was the chapter on my mom's death."

And yet, on Jan. 25, the day before Grant Haas went public about Haggard's sexual advances toward him, Jones posted a YouTube video in which he criticized New Life for ignoring him while he took the full heat of the press.

Yes, Jones admits he still has anger toward New Life leaders, but he's found solace in the encouraging letters, e-mails and conversations with people - including New Life congregants - who tell him he has made a difference in some people's hearts. He shared some of those e-mails with me.

"I mostly want you to know many of us at New Life do feel sorry that this happened and we don't blame you," a New Life member wrote. "We are sorry you were beat up in all this when what you wanted was to reveal the truth."

"I thought what you did was the best thing to happen to this city since I moved here 6 years ago," wrote another Colorado Springs resident.

Another solace has been Haggard's apologies on national television shows. "Here is a man thanking me for exposing him," Jones said.

But Jones is not completely won over by the disgraced pastor's contriteness.

"I have to listen to Ted Haggard through a filter," he said, "but I want to believe him."

To read more e-mails to Jones from current and former New Life members, go to my blog, The Pulpit, at gazette.com.

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