The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Yunior Beltres, pastor of Evangelistic Ministry of Columns of Fire (Ministerio Evangelistico Columnas de Fuego) in Miami, Florida, stands accused of repeatedly raping two young girls in his bedroom and forcing them to witness each other’s assault.
The Miami Herald reports:
Yunior Beltres, a 54-year-old citizen of the Dominican Republic, was charged with two counts of sexual battery on a minor, police said. The alleged victims are 9 and 10 years old.
The girls, whose relationship to Beltres was not disclosed, reported the abuse to police in July. They said the assaults occurred in May and June at his home in the 300 block of Northeast 118th Terrace in Miami.
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The congregation, also known as Ministerio Evangelistico Columnas de Fuego, is located on the second floor at 2052 NW 22nd Ct. in Miami, according to state records. Beltres has been affiliated with the organization since at least 1996, according to the records.
A woman who answered the phone number listed for the religious organization on Friday said that Beltres was a pastor at the congregation and that the accusations against him were false. She did not provide her name and hung up on a reporter.
In the voice greeting for the phone number, Beltres identifies himself as a pastor and wishes blessings on his callers.
Arthur Perrault with one of his victims, eleven-year-old Ken Wolter
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Olivier Uyttebrouck, a writer for the Albuquerque Journals details in the following excerpt the sordid thirty-year story of Catholic priest and sexual predator Arthur Perrault:
St. Pius X High School leaders were hit with a “bombshell” in 1970 when they were told of allegations of sexual abuse against the Rev. Arthur Perrault, a teacher at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s flagship high school.
Those allegations remained secret for decades, but documents released this week pull back the curtain on how those school leaders and the archbishop responded.
And the documents show that, once again, a priest was simply moved to another post where he had access to new victims. They also show that Perrault was sent to St. Pius in the first place as a “good test period” to allow the archbishop to observe the 20-something priest after he was released from a Jemez Springs center that treated pedophile priests.
He was at the school four years and was later accused of molesting 11 victims during that period, from 1966-1970.
In 1970, St. Pius board members were approached by the father of a student, who asked to meet with them because “one of his sons that was at Pius had been involved with Father Perrault,” a board member recalled in a 1992 deposition. The father said that as a result of the abuse, his son “was so messed up that he had been thinking about suicide.”
The father, who is not identified in the deposition, said he discussed the abuse with then-Archbishop of Santa Fe James Davis. The allegations were electrifying, the board member said, because Perrault was chairman of the theology department at the archdiocese’s flagship high school.
“Look, we’ll take care of this but we can’t have any publicity,” Davis reportedly told the boy’s father. “We must be Christian about this.”
New details about the careers of Perrault and two other former New Mexico priests became public this week after a judge ordered the disclosure of nearly 1,000 pages of church records that had been sealed under a previous court order.
The records contain letters written by three archbishops of Santa Fe and other church officials, legal settlements, deposition transcripts, psychological reports and other records provided by the archdiocese to Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall, who has filed more than 70 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of children by priests.
Among them is the deposition of a former St. Pius board member whose name was redacted from the transcript.
The board member said that Archbishop Davis wavered about how to respond. He at first agreed to remove Perrault, but later changed his mind. “It’s under our control and it’s our problem. Not yours,” Davis told four board members.
The father who made the allegation warned the board member that if Davis took no action, he would file a “sodomy suit” against the archdiocese, according to the deposition.
The threat prompted the board member to seek a private meeting with the archbishop, where he told Davis that the archdiocese faced a lawsuit if Perrault remained at St. Pius.
“I remember to this day what Archbishop Davis did,” the board member recalled. “He put his right arm on my shoulder and said, `We can’t have that. I’ll honor my commitment.’” Three days later, Perrault was dismissed from St. Pius.
Davis then authorized Perrault to work as chaplain to the student community the University of Albuquerque, a now-defunct Catholic college operated by the archdiocese.
The incident at St. Pius was not the first time, nor the last, that allegations of Perrault’s sexual attacks on boys would reach the ears of an archbishop of Santa Fe.
Perrault had been accused of sexual attacks before he arrived in New Mexico in January 1966.
The Archdiocese of Hartford, Conn., where Perrault was ordained in 1964, ordered him to undergo treatment at a facility in Jemez Springs operated by the Servants of Paraclete. The now-closed Via Coeli facility received priests from across the U.S. accused of sexually molesting children.
Perrault, then 28, was sent to Jemez Springs after “two alleged incidents of homosexual approaches to some of the young men with whom he was working,” in Connecticut, Via Coeli psychologist John Sanchez told Archbishop Davis in a 1966 letter.
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Court records show that Perrault is accused of sexually abusing 38 children during his years in New Mexico.
Of those, 11 alleged attacks occurred during Perrault’s tenure at St. Pius High School from 1966 to 1970. The alleged attacks occurred at St. Pius, in Perrault’s home, or at two churches where he worked on weekends.
He has never been charged with a crime.
Letters written in the early 1980s show that later allegations against Perrault prompted then-Archbishop Robert Fortune Sanchez to order that he undergo a psychological evaluation.
That evaluation found that Perrault “acted out his homosexual orientation only with youngsters and has never had an ongoing, adult homosexual relationship,” psychologist Joseph VanDenHeuvel told Sanchez in a June 1981 report.
The psychologist said Perrault “made mention of the fact that he had `been in trouble’ because of illicit sexual activities with students,” VanDenHeuvel told the archbishop.
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Just seven months after receiving the report, Sanchez assigned Perrault to a pastoral post at an Albuquerque parish.
“I am pleased herein to assign you to St. Bernadette Parish for weekend assignment to assist the pastor,” Sanchez told Perrault in a Jan. 6, 1982, letter.
“Thanking you, Father Arthur, for your service to the good people of St. Bernadette Parish, and to the Pastoral Center, while wishing you all the Lord’s Blessing throughout this New Year,” Sanchez wrote.
Perrault became the pastor at St. Bernadette in 1985 and remained there until he fled New Mexico in 1992, just days before an Albuquerque attorney filed a lawsuit alleging that he sexually assaulted seven children.
Perrault turned up last year in Morocco working at an English-language school for children, from which he was subsequently fired. It is not clear where he is now.
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In early 2017, a judge handed down a $16 million judgment to one of Perrault’s victims. Olivier Uyttebrouck reports:
A judge handed down a $16 million judgment this week against a former New Mexico priest for failure to respond to a lawsuit filed by a man who alleges he was sexually abused by Arthur Perrault in the early 1990s.
Second Judicial District Judge Denise Barela-Shepherd handed down the default judgment Thursday after she found that Perrault had been properly served with the civil lawsuit, but failed to defend himself against the allegations.
She ordered Perrault to pay $1 million in damages and an additional $15 million in punitive damages. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Perrault, who vanished from his Albuquerque parish in 1992, was tracked last year to Tangiers, Morocco, where he was teaching at an English language school for children.
Perrault was fired in May when school officials learned of the allegations, the director of the American Language Center in Tangiers told the Journal .
Kenneth Wolter, 35, filed the civil lawsuit last year alleging he had been sexually abused by Perrault at least 40 times in the early 1990s. Wolter was 10 or 11 at the time, and serving as an altar boy at St. Bernadette Parish, where Perrault was the pastor.
Unknown is whether Wolter will be able to collect any portion of the $16 million judgment from Perrault, said Levi Monagle, one of three Albuquerque attorneys who represent Wolter.
“Money wasn’t the point of this for us,” Monagle said Friday. “Ken (Wolter) didn’t do this for the money. The message made on behalf of the victims was Ken’s main priority.”
Wolter testified at a hearing in January that he wanted to send Perrault a message on behalf of his 38 known victims “and the silent people who haven’t come forward.”
He asked Barela-Shepherd to award a total of $38 million in damages, or $1 million for each alleged victim. Barela-Shepherd did not explain in her order why she handed down a $16 million judgment.
Perrault, 79, sent Barela-Shepherd a letter in November denying that he had abused Wolter, court records show. He also said that he had no assets and could not afford to hire an attorney, or to return to Albuquerque to attend the January hearing.
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Last Friday, a jury found Perrault guilty of sexually abusing an altar boy. Perrault was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
In ordering the sentence, U.S. District Judge Martha Vazquez said it was the worst case of child sex abuse she has handled over the course of 26 years.
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Prosecutors had asked the judge for special consideration of a life sentence for Perrault, once a pastor at an Albuquerque parish and a chaplain at Kirtland Air Force Base.
He was convicted in April of six counts of aggravated sexual abuse and one count of abusive sexual contact with a minor under 12.
“It is a long sentence but certainly a fitting one given the length of his conduct and devastating impact,” U.S. Attorney John Anderson said.
Perrault pleaded not guilty after he was returned to the U.S. from Morocco in 2017 and maintained his innocence at the sentencing. His defense team plans to file an appeal.
The abuse counts stemmed from the treatment of one boy at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and at Santa Fe National Cemetery. The two sites are within federal jurisdiction, which allowed U.S. authorities to file charges with no statute of limitations.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Gregory Lisby, a former pastor of Christ Episcopal Church in Ridgewood, New Jersey, stands accused of child pornography possession. Earlier this year, Lisby began working as a kindergarten teacher at Holyoke Public Schools in Massachusetts. Previously, Lisby was a pastor at All Saints Episcopal Church in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Gregory Lisby, a former pastor at Christ Church in Ridgewood from 2010 to 2015, was charged by federal officials in Boston last week with possession of child pornography.
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Lisby, 40, began working as a kindergarten teacher at Holyoke Public Schools in Massachusetts this year, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boston. He resigned from his teaching position hours later in a letter that stated: “I was accused of an awful crime that could put our Holyoke children in harm’s way,” the complaint said.
Lisby was suspended last year from his position as rector at All Saints Church in Worcester for “an inappropriate relationship with an adult that did not involve sexual contact,” Bishop Douglas Fisher of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts said in a letter posted on the diocese’s website Friday.
Lisby was the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Worcester from 2015 to 2018 and listed on his Linkedin page past employment as a substitute teacher in Worcester Public Schools, an instructional aid in Shrewsbury Public Schools and most recently as a teacher assistant at Little Sprouts child care in Natick. Little Sprouts did not return a call Friday seeking to verify his employment status there.
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FBI agents on Wednesday raided the rectory of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, where Lisby lives with his husband, the churche’s reverend, and the couple’s two daughters. Authorities say they found an iPad that contained more than 150 pornographic images.
According to the search warrant application, the investigation had already uncovered at least 180 images and 15 videos of child pornography in an account believed to be in Lisby’s name. The images showed young boys, ages 8 through 12, having sex.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In October 2017, I posted a story detailing sexual abuse allegations against Garry Evans, pastor of Rushville Baptist Temple in Rushville, Indiana. Rushville Baptist is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation.
RTV-6 reported at the time:
A 72-year-old pastor in Rush County is accused of molesting multiple young children in his congregation.
Garry Evans, Pastor of the Rushville Baptist Temple was arrested Wednesday evening during a traffic stop.
According to court documents, the investigation began after a 3-year-old child who attends the church told her mother that Evans had taken her into his office to give her candy then “pulled his pants down” and made her touch his genitals.
Shortly after the investigation began another mother came forward saying her 7-year-old and 5-year-old claimed they had also been touched by the pastor. Both girls told investigators that “The Pastor” gives the kids candy when they go into his office alone, and touches them or makes them touch him. The youngest girl told investigators that it started happening after she started kindergarten in August.
And another mother with two young girls at the church also came forward with a similar story.
Rushville Police Chief Craig Tucker said a woman also came forward and said she had been molested by Evans decades ago, in a different community. That woman helped police pursue the new cases, but it is unclear if charges can be sought in hers.
Evans is charged with three counts of child molestation, four counts of sexual battery and five counts of child solicitation. He is currently being held without bond at the Rush County Jail.
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In November 2017, the Rushville Republican reported:
The Rush County Prosecutor’s Office filed more charges Thursday against Garry Evans, the Pastor of the Rushville Baptist Temple Church. The new charges stem from allegations from a new alleged victim, identified in Court filings as a six-year-old. The new charges include Child Molesting, a Level 4 Felony, and Child Solicitation, a Level 5 Felony.
Evans previously was charged with Child Molesting, Child Solicitation, and Sexual Battery involving five alleged victims. Evans posted the $20,000 bond soon after it was set by the Judge. Along with the new charges, the Prosecutor filed a motion to increase Evans’ original bond. Rush County Prosecutor Phil Caviness explained that the fact that these charges bring the number of alleged victims to six justifies a higher bond than the standard Level 4 Felony case, and added that his office was seeking Evans to be monitored by the Rush County Community Corrections Program if he is released on bond. “We feel that given the charges, GPS monitoring and protective orders for all of the alleged victims and their families are important conditions of bond in this case,” Caviness said.
Court documents indicate that these new alleged incidents occurred sometime between the Fall of 2016 and Summer, 2017, but were disclosed after the first charges were filed against Evans. Trial for these charges currently is scheduled to begin on Feb. 20, 2018.
In February 2018, Evans was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing. His wife was also arrested. The Herald-Tribune reported at the time:
A report of criminal trespass received by the Rushville Police Department Jan. 29 led to the arrest of Pastor Garry Evans, 72, and his wife Gay Evans, 70.
The elder Evans had been released from jail after posting a $20,000 bond following his initial arrest in October 2017 regarding a number of allegations of inappropriate activity with minors, according to earlier editions of the Rushville Republican. A condition of his bond required that Evans be placed on GPS monitoring by the court.
Although innocent until proven guilty, Evans was initially charged last fall with three counts of child molestation, a Level 4 felony; four counts of sexual battery, a Level 5 felony; and five counts of child solicitation, a Level 6 felony.
Additional allegations and charges were filed with the courts in November 2017 when another minor child came forward. Following the second arrest, Evans, the longtime pastor of the Rushville Baptist Temple, unsuccessfully attempted to take his own life and, as a result, was hospitalized for an extended period of time.
The couple’s most recent legal troubles began when the pair appeared Jan. 28 at a Rushville residence stating they wished to see a family member they believed to be inside. The tenant reported they would not leave until they spoke with the individual. The tenant and complainant in the case informed the Evanses that they were not welcome at the property and needed to leave. The couple refused and demanded to speak with the relative.
Following several attempts to get them to leave, the complainant stated that she felt threatened and retreated into the residence, where she retrieved a firearm. The woman returned to the door and again told the couple to leave, but they refused. At this time, Gay Evans attempted unsuccessfully to take the firearm from the resident. The complainant then locked herself inside and stowed the firearm.
A few moments later, the resident observed Garry and Gay Evans looking in a vehicle on the property. The complainant then chased the pastor and his wife off her property with a baseball bat.
As a result of the incident, warrants were issued for the arrest of Garry Evans and Gay Evans for criminal trespass, a Class A misdemeanor.
The pair were taken into custody Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 30. During the course of the arrest, Gay Evans became verbally abusive and physically resistant toward officers and as a result was additionally charged with resisting law enforcement, a Class A misdemeanor.
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Earlier this month, Evans’ trial began, culminating with the jury acquitting him on all counts. As of today, the prosecutor’s office has not made a public statement in relation to Evans’ acquittal.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Several weeks ago, Emanuel Rodriguez, pastor of Calvary Assembly of God Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was picked up on a Nebraska arrest warrant that charged him with two counts of third-degree sexual assault of a child.
Omaha police believe a church pastor based in Council Bluffs sexually assaulted two little girls.
Emanuel Rodriguez, 44, is under arrest and in custody at a jail in Minnesota on Sunday night. The Omaha Police Department thinks Rodriguez’s alleged crimes happened in its jurisdiction and in one case, date back to 2016.
A sworn affidavit filed in Douglas County led to police issuing an arrest warrant for Rodriguez. He faces two counts of third-degree sexual assault of a child.
According to court documents, Omaha police learned of the allegations last week. Two young girls and their mothers approached advocates at Project Harmony to report the alleged assaults.
Investigators said the victims told them Rodriguez would place his hands on them while he and the child were under blankets. The victims also told investigators Rodriguez allegedly sexually assaulted them inside two of his former homes in Omaha.
Now behind bars in Nebraska on a $500,000 bond, Rodriguez and his wife Veronica face witness tampering charges.
Prosecutors said 44-year-old Emanuel Rodriguez had his wife, 42-year-old Veronica Rodriguez, contact his accusers’ families to get them to drop the case.
“The co-defendant and his wife read a text message that she sent to the victims’ mothers asking that they let this stuff go,” said deputy Douglas County attorney Tony Clowe in court.
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Thursday, Judge Marcela Keim set the couple’s bond at $75,000 and ordered them to have no contact with accusers.
Rodriguez is a member of the Christian rock group 70xForgiven.
Something tells me that Rodriguez won’t be forgiven seventy times seven over his alleged abuse of these young girls. What’s needed now is justice.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Kenneth Hogue, a longtime United Pentecostal Church pastor and an official with the sect’s regional district office, pleaded guilty last week to embezzling more than $250,000 from the church.
Kenneth Hogue was charged in U.S. District Court this week with federal wire fraud for siphoning $288,757.94 from the Rocky Mountain District of the United Pentecostal Church from June 2012 until July 18, 2016.
The court filings charging Hogue were accompanied by a plea agreement setting out the terms for his guilty plea. Hogue has agreed to pay the embezzled amount back but nothing more, while Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Racicot said during the Thursday hearing that the Rocky Mountain District of the Pentecostal church may seek additional restitution.
During the embezzlement scheme — which began in 2012, the same year Hogue was elected to the district’s treasurer post — Hogue’s duties included depositing church offerings into the district’s account and writing checks for church expenses. He was also authorized to pay himself for his services as an official of the district, with the main office located in Wyoming.
“I was authorized to write some checks to myself for insurance and a stipend for my service,” he told U.S. Magistrate Kathleen DeSoto on Thursday. “I wrote checks in addition to that.”
In addition to writing unauthorized checks, Hogue also described using the district’s debit card to withdraw church funds from an ATM.
Racicot said during the hearing that Hogue had also opened a new bank account in the name of the Pentecostal church, without permission, and transferred church funds to that account.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Hurmiz Ishak, a subdeacon at St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church in Troy, Michigan, was convicted last week of one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
The Oakland Press reports:
Ishak’s victim was 14 at the time of the assault, which took place in 2017 and 2018 at St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church, where Ishak has been a member for 21 years.
Ishak had faced three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, with alternate charges of third-degree criminal sexual conduct if the jury determined Ishak wasn’t in a position of authority over the victim. He was acquitted of the two other charges.
During the trial which started late last week, jurors saw Ishak’s recorded interview with a Troy police detective where he admitted to participating in some sexual activity with the teen boy at the church. He also said he did some of the acts at the boy’s request.
Ishak’s attorney, Jalal Dallo, had built a defense partly on a claim that a language barrier posed issues during Ishak’s interview with police. Assistant prosecutor Christopher George, however, dismissed that, noting Ishak has been in the United States since the 1970s and an interpreter was present via speaker phone during the interview — and rarely needed. He also noted Ishak used slang when describing the sexual activity.
The boy testified Monday, describing sex acts with Ishak which he subsequently reported to church officials in October 2018, who then contacted Troy police. Among the other witnesses jurors heard from were two other alleged victims of Ishak, a teenage girl and an adult woman, who both claim Ishak acted inappropriately with them at the church. The adult woman was a teenager at the time, and was reportedly advised by her mother to keep the allegations to herself because otherwise she’d be ostracized and “treated like damaged goods” by the Chaldean community.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Dan Broxterman, the former pastor of FUN CHURCH (now closed) in Hamilton, Ohio, was indicted recently on ten counts of rape. One alleged victim was under the age of thirteen. Local 12-News reports:
A Butler County grand jury indicted Dan Broxterman, 56, on Aug. 8. According to the indictment, the rapes occurred from 2014 through July 2019. Broxterman was a pastor and the lead singer of a tribute band. He also faces charges of gross sexual imposition and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
Tammy Mercer attended one of Broxterman’s churches from 2010 until 2013. She believes many people were fooled by him. But, she said she became suspicious after learning he was ordained by paying $50 online. She also said she found out he was allowing teenagers to sleep over at the church and engage in sexual activity.
Broxterman previously pastored Tree of Life Church (now closed) in Hamilton, Ohio. A church listing website had this to say about Tree of Life and its pastor:
We have church in the Hamilton Family Fun Center and always have a reason to laugh. Pastor Dan makes sure of that! The kids love us because of our 222 CLUB. The music is powerful and energetic. Come worship with us! Turning Hamilton Downside Up From The Outside In!
“Kids love us”, and our pastor loves kids too. He’s a pedophile who pays close attention to church children. Praise Jesus!
On Tuesday, Broxterman pleaded not guilty to additional charges of rape, gross sexual imposition and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. According to Local-12, at least one of the victims is under the age of thirteen.
According to Linkedin, Broxterman is the business development manager for Ohio Valley Insurance and Financial Group in Fairfield, Ohio. I suspect he is not doing much “developing” since he is sitting in jail with a $1 million bond.
Broxterman is the lead singer for PUSH — a DIO tribute band. Broxterman’s Twitter account mentions he is the lead singer for a called Holy Diver.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Benjamin “Gus” Harter, pastor of Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church in Sandy Springs, Georgia, stands accused of repeatedly sexually molesting a girl under the age of sixteen.
An arrest warrant details how Harter is charged with molesting a girl under the age of 16, touching her inappropriately as she lay in his bed on multiple occasions across at least three years, from 2012 to 2015.
Harter was arrested on Friday, and is being held without bond.
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Church officials confirmed parts of a winding, expansive biography: Harter and his wife joined religious communities in Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Texas and even as far away as the Philippines.
They have five adult children in addition their adopted children and more than 20 grandchildren.
Before joining Ebenezer Primitive, Harter worked at several other churches in the Southeast, and most notably spent three decades with Bethany Primitive Baptist Church in Suwanee until 2000.
At that time, Harter left the church and moved with his wife to the Philippines.
While there, he led two churches and helped build many more. He and his wife also built an orphanage. They returned to the U.S. in 2008.
In a 2012 interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the pastor [Harter] explained that the word primitive means original.
“We worship like they did when they came over from England. We’re very fundamental, and not charismatic,”Harter said. “The closest to us theologically is a reformed Presbyterian church.”
A Florida native, Harter completed undergraduate studies at Southeastern Bible College in Alabama, where he began serving as pastor of a small Methodist church, the AJC previously reported. He continued his education at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, where he first attended a Primitive Baptist church. Harter served as a pastor in Kentucky for two years and in Florida for seven years before moving to the Atlanta area.
In addition to their adopted children, the Harters also have five adult children and more than 20 grandchildren, he previously told The AJC.
I came here to make this historic church work,” he[Harter] said. “I don’t want to see it die.”
Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church has fallen on hard times. First established in 1829, it sits on the corner of Roberts and Spalding Drives. But whereas it had over 1,000 people attend service in 1928, its membership dropped to an all-time low this spring.
“When I came, Edward Cagle [the previous pastor] was the only active member of the church,” Harter said. “But 27 people joined with me so we’ve got a basic start.”
Patsy Froy is one of the members who moved with Harter from Bethany Primitive Baptist Church to Ebenezer. “I’ve known him my whole life, basically,” she said. “He’s been there for funerals, babies being born, weddings. He’s a very influential person in my life.”
Harter plans on renovating the church as his first order of business. The current brick building stands across the street from the original church, which Harter said was taken apart by Union soldiers during the Civil War. The building as it is now is the church’s fourth reconstruction.
“I want to dress it up, but I don’t want to lose the antiquity of it,” said Harter. “It’s a beautiful church.”
He thinks that this beauty alone, coupled with the improvements, will help attract new members. But Harter also believes that the church offers something different.
“We are not contemporary, but we are unique,” he said. “Every service has 30 minutes of a capella singing, and about 45 minutes to an hour of expository preaching. And we have a potluck lunch after church.”
Primitive Baptists are known for the simplicity of their worship. No musical instruments are allowed in church, so members engage in Sacred Harp singing, a tradition where singers use their voices as instruments in four-part harmony. There are also no divisions by age or gender. This means that children attend services and are encouraged to participate in all activities.
Dr. David DeHaven, an adjunct professor at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, stand accused of filming and photographing minors in a state of undress.
DeHaven, 49, taught for Liberty University Online as an adjunct instructor of business. Scott Lamb, senior vice president of communications at Liberty University, said DeHaven has been suspended pending the outcome of the charges. DeHaven also operates D3 Coaching, an executive coaching and strategy consulting business.
DeHaven is a former president of the Parent Teacher Student Association at James River High School, Principal Jamie Talbott said.
DeHaven’s Linkedin profile makes no mention of his work at Liberty University.
