Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor, ‘stole my wife’
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 1:58AM BST 06/05/2008
Barack Obama’s controversial spiritual mentor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, has been accused of stealing the wife of a parishioner who went to him for marriage counselling.
Delmer Reed has told friends he believed it was no coincidence that his former wife, Ramah, divorced him and married Mr Wright shortly after the Chicago pastor gave him advice on their troubled marriage in the early 1980s.
Roosevelt Thomas, a lawyer who handled the Reeds’ divorce in 1983, confirmed to the New York Post that Mr Reed long believed Rev Wright moved in on his wife after counselling them.
The allegation, which is flatly denied by the Wright family, compounds the embarrassment that Mr Obama has already suffered from his links with Rev Wright.
Senator Obama has known the Rev Wright for more than 20 years but he was forced to end their friendship last week over repeated claims by the pastor that America was to blame for the 9/11 attacks and for spreading the Aids virus.
Mr Reed, 59, a former investigator for the Illinois secretary of state, told the Post that he and his wife went to Rev Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for help when his long working hours started to damage their marriage.
He said he spoke with Rev Wright four times over a few months. Ramah remarried six years after she divorced Mr Reed but she and the pastor, who have a teenage daughter, were reportedly a couple for years before they wed.
Mr Reed said he had promised his children he would not say anything negative about their stepfather, whom he said he had forgiven.
However, he admitted he initially hadn’t believed rumours linking his wife with the pastor, but belatedly conceded he was wrong.
“People were telling me my extremely attractive wife was seen with the pastor. I thought, ’So what?’” Harold Davis, a Chicago youth leader, told the Post it had been “common knowledge” . He added: “Jeremiah knew all the weaknesses of the couple, and he started focusing on the wife, her vulnerabilities, and started doing things she wanted Delmer to do – spending time with her, taking her to the movies, that sort of thing.”
A spokesman for the Wright family denied the allegation, saying: “They had problems throughout the course of their turbulent marriage and the couple never received marriage counselling from Rev Wright or anyone else.”