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Category: Black Collar Crime

Black Collar Crime: Pennsylvania State Police Raid Roaring Brook Baptist Church on Allegations of Misconduct

Roaring Brook Baptist Church

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.

Pennsylvania state troopers raided Roaring Brook Baptist Church in Hunlock Creek, Pennsylvania as part of an investigation into “allegations of misconduct within the church.” Dan Brubaker is the pastor of Roaring Brook Baptist.

Bob Kalinowski, a reporter for The Citizens’ Voice, writes:

State police on Wednesday raided a Hunlock Creek church as part of an investigation into “allegations of misconduct within the church.”

Police served a search warrant at Roaring Brook Baptist Church on Pritchards Road.

Troopers would not say what they were investigating , but they were seen hauling two computers away from the church as evidence.

Pastor Dan Brubaker was seen leaving the church with a copy of the search warrant.

“I can’t respond. I’m not answering any questions,” he told reporters.

Police would not reveal the nature of the allegations. They said the search warrant was sealed for 60 days and no one was immediately arrested.

Sgt. James Dunleavy, station commander for thee Shickshinny state police barracks, said troopers were acting upon a complaint received.

ABC-16 adds:

State police raided Roaring Brook Baptist Church in Hunlock Township in Luzerne County just after 10 a.m.

“I’m shocked. I’m literally shocked.”

A neighbor who lives across the street from Roaring Brook Baptist Church is trying to grapple with the sight of state police raiding the well-known church in Hunlock Township shortly after 10 a.m.

During the raid, investigators seized two computer hard drives. State police would not release any information as to why the raid of the church took place.

“We’re here today at the Roaring Brook Baptist church to investigate allegations of misconduct within the church,” said Sgt. James Dunleavy, Pennsylvania State Police. “At this point in the investigation, we’re not prepared to make any statements as to the particulars of the allegations. The court has sealed the search warrant for the period of 60 days.”

The search warrant is sealed and police would not say who might be under investigation.

Newswatch 16 knocked on the door of the churches’ pastor, Dan Brubaker, but he had no comment.

“I’m not talking to the news media,” Brubaker said.

That neighbor who lives across the street tells us that the church has an excellent reputation. She couldn’t believe what was happening this morning.

“As far as I know, it’s excellent,” Linda Archavage said. “They have so many people going there. My dad used to go there. We have senior things over here and all. He’s very involved with all of the church members. I’m just speechless as far as it goes.”

One man received a call from somebody informing him that there was a police presence here at the church. He says that he was surprised to hear that news because the area is considered safe.

“Once in a while, we have problems with people breaking in because it’s a country church and it out here,” Arden Delkanic of Hunlock Township said. “It’s a pretty honest community. We usually don’t have any problems around here.”

According to the church’s website, Roaring Brook Baptist is:

Are an independent church
Encourage inner spiritual growth not mere outward action
Have an informal atmosphere in services
Do not expect nonmembers to contribute financially
Seek changed lives through Christ
Are committed to correct doctrine
Emphasize prayer
Let the Bible be our source of doctrine

The church’s website lists five reasons people attend Roaring Brook:

Friendly, caring, informal atmosphere
Good practical Bible teaching
Ministry for children
A godly pastor who loves the Lord and is committed to presenting God’s Word in a meaningful manner.
They don’t beg for money. Giving is to be due to love for God.

And finally, the church’s website has this to say about Pastor Brubaker:

Pastor Dan has a love for God’s Word and for people. He is gifted with the ability to present God’s Word in a practical manner for daily living. He is convinced that problems and struggles can be resolved through understanding and applying God’s Word. This conviction is evident in the clear manner in which he teaches God’s Word. He regularly spends much time in the study of God’s Word and prayer. He seeks to provide instruction rather than preaching “at” people. He teaches God’s Word due to his love for individuals.

Black Collar Crime: Bible Teacher Erick Granados-Zeledon Gets Ten Years for Sexually Abusing Child

erick ernesto granados zeledon

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.

Erick Granados-Zeledon, a Bible teacher at Iglesia Hispana Emmanuel in Annapolis, Maryland, was sentenced today to ten years in prison for sexually molesting a ten-year-old child.

Saline San Felice, a reporter for the Capital Gazette, writes:

A former Bible study instructor at an Annapolis church was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a child.

Erick Ernesto Granados-Zeledon, 39, of Edgewater, was arrested in June and charged with sex abuse of a minor and several related crimes. A 10-year-old child told investigators that Granados-Zeledon sexually abused him.

On Tuesday, Circuit Court Judge Michael Wachs sentenced him to 10 years in prison with five years probation. Granados-Zeledon is required to register as a tier three sex offender for the rest of his life and has been barred from any unsupervised contact with minors.

Granados-Zeledon was a chaperone and Bible study instructor at Iglesia Hispana Emmanuel in Annapolis, where he met the boy and his family, Assistant State’s Attorney Reva Chopra said during the sentencing hearing in Annapolis. He became a friend of the family and would take the child from the family’s residence to church, out to eat and occasionally to his home in Edgewater, police wrote in charging documents.

“His family believed (Granados-Zeledon) wanted to be a mentor for the young boy,” Chopra said in court.

….

Assistant Public Defender Bethany Linden Skopp, Granados-Zeledon’s attorney, said her client admitted to investigators that he’d performed sexual acts with the child in March when he drove the boy to his home. He pleaded guilty in October, and prosecutors dropped all of the charges except for sex abuse of a minor.

At the time of his arrest, Anne Arundel County police expressed concerned there might have been more victims since Granados-Zeledon’s position at the church put him in regular contact with children.

….

Black Collar Crime: Mormon Counselor Jeffrey Graton Accused of Sex Crimes

jeffrey graton

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.

Jeffrey Graton, a counselor affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was arrested Monday on sexual abuse allegations.

The Daily Herald reports:

A second counselor in a bishopric in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was arrested Monday after reportedly sexually abusing a girl multiple times.

Jeffrey Graton, 40, of American Fork, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of forcible sexual abuse, a second-degree felony.

Police responded Sunday to a call at the 300th block of 620 South in American Fork Sunday night on a welfare check after an LDS bishop called to have police check on Graton, a second counselor in an LDS bishopric.

Graton reportedly had left his home with a gun and wasn’t answering his phone after it was reported he had inappropriately touched a girl several years ago, according to a police report. Graton was found and gave the rifle to an LDS leader.

The abuse reportedly happened 10 times.

Graton reportedly told police he had touched the girl’s chest and thighs, both under and over clothing, while giving her a massage in two occasions two and a half years ago. He also admitted to grabbing the girl’s hand and using it to touch his genitals.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Mark Millers Stands Accused of Ripping-Off Parishioners

pastor mark miller

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.

Mark Miller, pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, was charged Monday with “two counts of obtaining money by false pretenses.” According to Miller, he has a drug and gambling addiction.

ABC-8 reports:

A former Sand Springs pastor now stands accused of swindling his parishioners out of thousands of dollars.

Mark Miller, 48, was taken into custody on Monday and charged with two counts of obtaining money by false pretenses over $500 or a con game after a year-long investigation.

For many, the news was a total shock.

“When you think about a pastor of a church and he’s stealing money from church members, it’s just shocking and sad,” said convenience store owner, MD Hossain.

Hossain says Miller would come into his store all the time, located right across the street from Broadway Baptist Church. He says Miller always seemed like a nice guy.

“He would buy drinks and gum,” said Hossain. “A very good customer.”

Now, the good customer and beloved former pastor of Broadway Baptist Church is facing allegations of conning parishioners out of thousands of dollars.

“It was $25,000 here, $12,000 there. It was significant,” said Captain Todd Enzbrenner with the Sand Springs Police Department.

According to the affidavit, Miller first started borrowing money in October of 2016. He allegedly told victims he needed the money to pay for his daughter’s college tuition but instead would use it on lavish things.

“He borrowed a large sum of money from a particular person, and then that victim tried to recoup the money several months later,” said Enzbrenner. “They found out that he was also borrowing money from other parishioners and using that money to go on expensive vacations.”

The affidavit also states Miller told detectives he had painkiller and gambling addictions. It says he would gamble the borrowed money to try to double it to pay back what he borrowed.

….

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor James Crawford will Serve No Jail Time for Allegedly Molesting Three Girls

pastor james crawford

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.

James Crawford, pastor of Westside Church in Redding,California, inexplicably escaped 22 felony counts alleging lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, accepting a plea deal that had Crawford pleading no contest to three misdemeanors. Crawford will spend no time in jail.

Jim Schultz, a reporter for the Record Searchlight, writes:

A former Redding pastor arrested in February and charged with 31 criminal counts, including 22 felonies, for allegedly molesting three girls over a seven-year span pleaded no contest Monday in Shasta County Superior Court to three misdemeanors.

James Gladwell Crawford, the ex-pastor of  the Westside Church of Redding off Swasey Drive, pleaded no contest to child endangerment not likely to produce great bodily injury.

He was placed on probation for four years and credited for eight days he served in Shasta County Jail. He is not required to serve any additional jail time and was ordered to pay the standard court fees and fines.

A prosecutor for the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office could not be reached late Monday afternoon for comment about his plea deal.

Crawford was arrested Feb. 3 and later released from jail after his $1 million bail was posted. He was charged with 22 felony counts alleging lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, as well as a series of sex crime-related enhancements and nine misdemeanors.

Those charges were dismissed and he pleaded no contest to the three child endangerment-related misdemeanors.

Although there was no sexual intercourse involved, Crawford was accused of inappropriately touching the three girls, who were 17, 16 and 11 at the time of his arrest.

Additionally, he was accused of engaging in other inappropriate behavior, according to a Shasta County Sheriff’s Office report filed in court at the time of his arraignment.

That report says the girls told detectives that Crawford, among other things, playfully tickled — and touched them all over their bodies — as he removed their clothing.

One of the girls also told detectives he became upset at her and one of the other girls about five years earlier because they wanted to ride their bikes to school, according to the police report.

“In an effort to explain what could happen to them, James Crawford threw Victim 3 against a wall and held the backside of a knife blade against her throat,” the sheriff’s report said.

The other girl also involved in that episode confirmed that knife account, as well as the tickling, the sheriff’s report said.

….

Presbyterian Pastor C. Ernest Williams Blames Baby Boomers for Sexual Harassment Culture

make love not war
Ernest Williams, a retired Presbyterian minister, blames the current spate of sexual harassment allegations on baby boomers. According to Williams, the free-love generation threw Christian morality to the wind, leading to all sorts of sexual perversion and misbehavior. Ironically, Williams is a Trump supporter. Evidently, helping to elect a pussy-grabbing, serial sexual predator to the highest office in the land is okay, but using coarse language, viewing pornography, and fucking contrary to the Intercourse Rulebook® — the Bible — is not.  Williams is the textbook example of a hypocrite. Williams, as many of his ilk do, pines for a return to the glory days of the 1950s; days when women knew their place, gays were deep in the closet, and Christianity and its moral prohibitions ruled the land.

Here’s what Williams had to say in an opinion piece for The Paris Post-Intelligencer (Paris, Tennessee) titled ‘Cultural shift’ in Public Attitude Toward Sexual Morality Took Place 50 Years Ago:

We’ve been battered for weeks now with allegations of sexual misconduct by U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore in Alabama, and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan.

Add to those the smell of scandal surrounding a growing number of Hollywood personalities.

The media are talking about a “cultural shift” in the public’s attitude toward sexual morality.

Shock is being professed that leaders in the worlds of politics and entertainment are seeing the ends of their careers over the abuse of women in the workplace.

Of course, we recognize that such hanky-panky has been going on as far back as we can research.


The other reason is that the “cultural shift” which the media are just now discovering happened in the 1960s and ’70s.

It was in the ’60s that I became a seminary student, and saw some of the changes occurring on the campus of a top-rung Ivy League university (Princeton).

I was not naive. I had been in the army, and was familiar with the sexual immorality which was flaunted by my fellow barracks-mates, and by the underground pornographic material which they mysteriously found somewhere despite its illegality.

But something new was happening.

This kind of immorality had been confined to the businesses that had constantly to keep a low profile and to bribe the authorities in order to operate.

But now it became open, visible and eventually mainstream.

When the movie, “Deep Throat” created a stir about 1970, it did not appear in an XXX-rated shack in a back alley, but in a first-run theater on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia.

From that point, Hollywood increasingly purveyed the world-view of a whole new generation of producers whose heroes were people like Helen Gurley Brown and Hugh Hefner with their zeal for unrestricted sex-play.

There was an openly declared purpose to change our society and create a cultural shift.

Walk into a college classroom, or even your local middle school, and listen carefully, and you’ll see how successful they were.

The old norms of what was naughty and what was nice are gone.

The cultural shift took place some 50 years ago, and it blew away the cultural expectations for decency in language and sexual behavior that had been considered normal, even though some had always flouted them.

What the big mainstream media, whose professionals are part of the changed culture, have not realized is that there has always been about half the population who did not make the shift back then, and have continued to stand for traditional American values.

They are outraged to see obscene words, if not printed, then clearly indicated with initials and asterisks, on their TV screens.

They are outraged to see their elected officials engaging in conduct that they do not want as examples for their children and grandchildren.

They are outraged to see a man refusing to stand for the national anthem, or to be urged to do their “holiday shopping.”

And they are tired of being regarded as uneducated hicks who are hopelessly out of the times and out of the culture which for the elite has become normal.

These elite just couldn’t believe it when Donald Trump was elected U.S. president on a platform that seemed to them to appeal only to a few remaining and aging survivors of the old order.

The “cultural shift” they see now is not a shift at all for the Trump voters.

It is just the ongoing American tradition and people are thankful to the God in whom they still believe that they finally have someone in the White House who understands and shares their love of America.

It is those reared by the culture of the ’60s who consider “making love instead of war” to be normal, who can’t understand what is going on.

They see the rotten fruit of their culture in these celebrities, and not knowing that it was produced by the rotten tree of the sexual revolution, wonder where it came from.

….

There ya have it, baby boomers. Yet another cultural malady is that is your fault.

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.

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Black Collar Crime: Church Choir Director Robert Kalton Convicted of Sex Crimes

robert kaltonThe 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.

Robert Kalton, a British church choir director, was convicted of sexually abusing boys and sentenced to nine years in prison. Kalton previously spent six years in prison for similar crimes.

The BBC reports:

A former church choirmaster has been jailed for sexually abusing three boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

Robert Kalton, 82, sexually assaulted the children while he was working at a church in Leicestershire and Wiltshire, Leicestershire Police said.

He had moved to live in Portugal after the attacks and was arrested in 2013.

Kalton, of no fixed address, was found guilty of 15 child sex abuse offences at Leicester Crown Court and sentenced to nine years in prison.

He was also put on the sex offenders register for life.

Police said the victims were sexually abused at a church in Melton Mowbray and Trowbridge.

Officers received a report four years ago from a boy who claimed he had been sexually abuse by Kalton when he was 11 and 12 years old.

An investigation found two other victims were abused when they had attended choir practice.

Kalton was found guilty of four counts of gross indecency with a boy under 16 and 11 counts of indecent assault on a male.

Det Con Steve Winterton said: “These awful crimes took place when the victims were young boys.

“They have lived with what happened to them for many years and no doubt the crimes committed on them have affected them ever since.

“All the victims have shown immense courage throughout the investigation and legal proceedings and it’s their perseverance which has resulted in the conviction.”

The Leicester Mercury adds:

Former choirmaster and organist Robert Kalton was extradited from his home in Portugal earlier this year to face charges relating to his abuse of young boys during the seventies and eighties.

He was sentenced at Leicester Crown Court on Friday after admitting to 15 counts of indecency with a child and indecent assault on a male.

The court heard that Kalton’s crimes were committed against two victims when he was living in Thorpe Arnold, near Melton, and a third young boy when he previously lived in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

Richard Thatcher, prosecuting, said: “They were all boys at the time of the offences when this defendant was a choirmaster.”

He said Kalton seemed to “pay more attention to the boys” and was “very tactile with them” whilst not encouraging girls to join the choir.

Mr Thatcher said that the defendant used the victims’ “keenness to learn” to draw them to his home, which one described as being “like a boys club”.

Kalton also relied on his reputation as a gifted teacher and their parents’ naivety to engineer time alone with the boys and would “groom” them with praise to win their confidence.

The court heard that in each case “congratulatory hugs and kisses” would often lead to intimate touching and sexual activity, however, he added that this did not involve intercourse.

….

In 1988, the defendant was convicted of a serious sexual offence on a boy and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Mr Thatcher said: “These matters, however, did not come to light at the time, the complainants indicating that they would have lied at the time to avoid the embarrassment of revealing what had happened to them.”

….

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Manuel Mora Arrested on Sex Crime Allegation

pastor manuel mora

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.

Manuel Mora, a pastor at All Nations Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey was arrested Friday for allegedly engaging in a sexual relationship with a church teenager.

NJ.com reports:

A pastor at the All Nations Church in New Brunswick was arrested Friday for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a teenage girl, according to authorities.

Pastor Manuel Mora, 52, of the Kendall Park section of South Brunswick, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child in the third degree and criminal sexual contact, Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey said in a release.

No further details were made available about the pastor’s alleged relationship with the 17-year-old. Authorities only said their investigation found the two “had ongoing sexual contact.”

….

Black Collar Crime: Mennonite Missionary James Arbaugh Charged with Sex Crimes

james arbaugh
James Arbaugh Facebook Profile

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.

James Arbaugh, a Mennonite missionary in Haiti, has been charged with “grooming and/or having sexual contact with approximately 21 males under the age of 18.” Arbaugh attended Mountain View Mennonite Church in Lyndhurst, Virginia.

The Mennonite reports:

James Daniel Arbaugh, a Mennonite missionary, has been arrested and charged with molesting children while serving in Haiti. On Nov. 21, The Daily News-Record of Harrisonburg, Virginia, reported that Arbaugh was arrested on Nov. 15 by a U.S. Homeland Security special agent. Court records show that Arbaugh, 40, was charged with felony coercion or enticement of a minor. Arbaugh attended Mountain View Mennonite Church in Lyndhurst, Virginia, a former Mennonite Church USA congregation, and was a board member for Walking Together for Christ Haiti.

The criminal complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg, states that “Arbaugh reported grooming and/or having sexual contact with approximately 21 males under the age of 18.” Arbaugh disclosed the abuse to a counselor during a Sept. 11 session. In Virginia, health-care providers are mandated to report child abuse to social services. According to the Daily News-Record, social services contacted the Harrisonburg Police Department, who then contacted federal agents.

Arbaugh traveled to Haiti from 2009 to 2015. According to a website where he documented his mission work, Arbaugh was a self-supporting “tentmaker” partnering with Walking Together for Christ in Haiti and involved in “media ministry.” The last post on the site is from July 2.

According to the complaint, on Sept. 15, Arbaugh allowed police to look at his laptop and showed police a picture of a 5-year-old boy, the son of a pastor at a church in Haiti, on the computer. The complaint states that Arbaugh confessed to molesting the boy.

The complaint states, “Arbaugh indicated he used his missionary work in Haiti to build friendships with the minors. Arbaugh acknowledged that he groomed the minors in Haiti by engaging in minor sexual activities with them so that one day they would be open to more.”

….

According to Lynn Suter, VMMissions Director of Operations and International Ministries, VMMissions has not partnered with Walking Together since its incorporation in 2015. Prior to that time, Suter says, VMMissions was engaged in intermittent work in Haiti and sent six short-term missions teams from 2003-2010. VMMissions is reviewing its records to determine the extent of its connections to Arbaugh. VMMissions has not found record of James Arbaugh having been employed as a missionary by VMMissions. VMMissions is calling on individuals with information about Arbaugh’s connections to the organization to contact Suter (lynn.suter@vmmissions.org). According to Suter, VMMissions and the Walking Together board will work to contact individuals in Haiti that Arbaugh may have been connected to.

Suter says that VMMissions first learned in September that Arbaugh had returned to the United States to receive professional counseling for unnamed “sexual sins.” VMMissions was told that Arbaugh was aware that if he divulged anything about his behavior that was illegal, the counselor would be legally required to report it to the authorities. VMMissions did not learn more about Arbaugh’s behavior until the Daily News-Record article was published on Nov. 21. VMMissions does not have information regarding the time frame when Arbaugh’s misconduct occurred.

“VMMissions strongly condemns the abuse Mr. Arbaugh has confessed and is alleged to have committed. We are heartsick for the victims and for the grievous misrepresentation of Christ and his church by someone who should have been trustworthy,” wrote Suter in a Nov. 30 email.

Suter says that VMMissions has procedures both to assess the fitness and conduct of individuals who apply for service with VMMissions, including criminal background checks.

“The revelation of Mr. Arbaugh’s conduct compels us to more closely examine the character and conduct of persons who are not appointed or employed with us but with whom we associate on the field and their own systems of accountability,” she wrote.

….

A February 6, 2018 report in the News Virginian states that James Arbaugh pleaded guilty and now faces up to 30 years in prison:

A Stuarts Draft man who prosecutors say traveled to Haiti as a Mennonite missionary to sexually abuse “multiple children” — some as young as 5 years old — pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg.

James Daniel Arbaugh, 40, entered a guilty plea to the charge of traveling in foreign commerce to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor.

Arbaugh, of Stuarts Draft, will be sentenced in June. He faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Arbaugh admitted to “engaging in illicit sexual conduct” with more than 20 boys while traveling in Haiti as a Mennonite missionary between 2008 and 2017, according to assistant U.S. Attorney Jeb Terrien.

The defendant would regularly visit remote towns and villages throughout the Caribbean nation, where he would “evangelize and show Christian-themed movies” to the residents, according to Terrien.

During these missionary visits, Arbaugh would befriend children in the communities and “groom” them to satisfy his sexual desires, the prosecutor said.

In all, he sexually abused 21 or more boys who were between the ages of 5 and 17 when the abuse took place.

….

Black Collar Crime: Moravian Pastor Rupert Clarke Pleads Guilty to Having Sex with Minors

pastor rupert clarke

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.

Rupert Clarke, pastor of the Nazareth Moravian Church in Manchester, Jamaica, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 years old.

The St. Lucia Times reports:

Rupert Clarke, the Moravian pastor who left tongues wagging last year when he was found in a compromising position with an underage girl in his motor car, pleaded guilty yesterday.

Clarke, 64, pleaded guilty to two counts of having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 years old when he appeared in the St Elizabeth Circuit Court.

On the night of December 28, 2016, the police reported that a team on patrol found Clarke with one of the complainants in a “compromising position” in his parked motor vehicle near Nain, St Elizabeth.

Clarke was immediately taken into police custody. He was granted bail in the sum of $800,000 on January 4.

Further investigations revealed that Clarke also had a sexual relationship with the child’s sister while she was under 16, the age of consent.

Yesterday’s court hearing was actually to make a ruling on the prosecution’s application to have the matter transferred to the Home Circuit Court in Kingston.

Justice Martin Gayle, after approximately three-and-a-half hours into the hearing, granted the application for the matter to be transferred to Kingston, but things changed quickly after the judge handed down his ruling.

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn told the Jamaica Observer that shortly after 5:00 pm Clarke’s attorney, Deborah Martin, upon hearing the ruling, indicated to the court that her client wished to change his plea.

Clarke then pleaded to having sexual intercourse with the complainants who are sisters from a poor family.

“One who was under 16 years old at the time of the incident and one who was 17 years old at the time the report was made to the police, but who indicated that she had had sexual intercourse with him when she was under 16 and in fact had a child for him as a result of that connection,” the DPP said.

….

Rev Clarke was pastor of the Nazareth Moravian Church in Manchester.