Menu Close

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Counselor and Pastor Raymond Gaglardi Convicted of Sexual Assault, Facing More Charges

3 Comments
raymond gaglardi

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 2023 Raymond Gaglardi, a former employee of Glad Tidings Church in Vancouver, British Columbia and Hillside Community Church in Coquitlam, was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to almost 13 years in prison. The sentence was reduced to half due to Galardi’s age, meaning he will only spend six and a half years in prison.

TriCity News reported:

A former pastor, therapist and counsellor who worked for churches in Coquitlam and Vancouver walked out of a court prisoner’s box today to be handcuffed and led to jail.

On Friday (Jan. 20), BC Supreme Court Justice Paul W. Riley imposed a sentence of 12 years and 11 months against Raymond Gaglardi; however, it was reduced by half under the totality principle due to his age, meaning Gaglardi will be behind bars for six years and six months.

Gaglardi, a diminutive man of 78 years old, showed no emotion as Riley took nearly 90 minutes to read out his reasons for judgment, or when the judge imposed the sentence.

His wife of 49 years, who sat behind the prisoner’s box, showed no expression as well.

But some victims present in court, and their spouses, brushed away tears after the decision. Several other victims — some dating back four decades — watched the hearing online.

Last year, following a trial, Riley convicted Gaglardi on 11 of the 25 offences before him. On the counts, each of the 11 victims experienced between one and three sexual assaults.

Riley recounted how Gaglardi befriended his victims at the Glad Tidings Church in Vancouver, its academy or summer camp, as well as at the Hillside Community Church in Coquitlam or at his counselling practice, located in the basement of his Coquitlam home.

The judge said Gaglardi “preyed” on adolescent boys or young men who came from troubled homes or were in need of help. They came to trust “Dr. Ray” for emotional support because he was part of the church and he told them he held a PhD in philosophy from Ohio Christian College, a post-secondary institution in the U.S. that was later declared to be fraudulent.

Gaglardi’s interactions with the boys and young men were “bizarre” and “opportunistic,” the judge told the New Westminster courtroom: In private, Gaglardi would check their bodies for venereal disease, touch their penises, use a pen-like instrument to examine their genitals, massage their prostate, provide pornographic material to masturbate or perform a coffee enema.

In another case in Coquitlam, Gaglardi did an anal swab with a Q-Tip to look at the feces.

And when the boys reported Gaglardi’s sexual conduct, they were often shunned from their broken families, who believed the church-going authority figure instead of their children.

The impact was long-lasting, the court heard, as many victims said Gaglardi’s actions led to shame, embarrassment and trauma that had a ripple effect on their future relationships.

In sentencing, Riley said he took into account Gaglardi’s age and his lack of criminal history, but he also noted Gaglardi’s abuse of position within the churches, his claim he was a trained doctor and therapist, and the duration of his crimes, which lasted from 1971 to 2017.

Besides his 155-month sentence in prison — cut to 78 months behind bars — Gaglardi will also be on a sex offender registry for 20 years and provide a DNA sample, Riley ordered.

In November 2024, Gaglardi was charged with three more counts of gross indecency and indecent assault.

Burnaby Now reports:

An 80-year-old former pastor and therapist who is serving a prison sentence for sex crimes against 11 young male clients has been charged with more offences in Vancouver and Burnaby in the 1970s.

Raymond Howard Gaglardi was sentenced in January 2023 to six-and-a-half years in prison after being convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault and sexual exploitation against victims between the ages of 10 and 30.

The offences were committed between 1971 and 1981, when Gaglardi was working at Glad Tidings Temple in Vancouver, and between 1993 and 2015, when he was associated with Hillside Community Church in Coquitlam, according to court documents.

A number of the offences were committed at Gaglardi’s Burnaby apartment.

His victims were between the ages of 10 and 30.

“In each case, Mr. Gaglardi touched the victim in a sexual manner, in circumstances where the victim did not consent, consented on false pretenses, or consented based on Mr. Gaglardi’s exploitation of a trust relationship,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Paul Riley said in his sentencing ruling in the case.

On Nov. 13, Gaglardi was charged with three more counts each of gross indecency and indecent assault (charges that no longer exist in the Criminal Code of Canada) against three different alleged victims in 1970, 1973 and 1974, according to the Vancouver provincial court registry.

He is scheduled to make his first court appearance on the new charges Wednesday.

The Burnaby NOW reached out to Coquitlam RCMP, which investigated the cases, for more information and was told a “full update” on the charges would be published later in the week.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Mormon Prophet Samuel Bateman Sentenced to 50 Years in Prison for Sex Crimes Against Children

3 Comments
samuel bateman

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.

Samuel Bateman, a self-appointed “prophet” of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — a polygamist subset of the Mormon church, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and a conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Bateman was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

The United States Attorney’s Office: District of Arizona reports:

Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 48, of Colorado City, was sentenced yesterday by United States District Judge Susan M. Brnovich to 50 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release. On April 1, 2024, Bateman pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Transportation of a Minor for Criminal Sexual Activity and Conspiracy to Commit Kidnapping.  

“Protecting the most vulnerable is our highest calling as prosecutors,” said United States Attorney Gary Restaino. “Many thanks to our dedicated prosecutors and law enforcement colleagues for an expeditious investigation, and to our victim advocates for their focus on services and healing.”

“Every child should feel and be safe in their homes,” said FBI Phoenix Special Agent in Charge Jose A. Perez. “Today’s sentencing brings some closure to the victims with hopes they can confidently continue the long road to living normal lives with trusted and loving adults surrounding them. Protecting our most vulnerable populations, with children at the top of the list, is and will continue to be a high priority for the FBI and our partners.”

Bateman, who represented himself as a religious prophet, was the leader of a years-long child sexual abuse conspiracy that spanned several states and victimized at least 10 children. Beginning in 2019, Bateman amassed followers in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska. In 2020 and 2021, Bateman’s followers gave their minor daughters and wards to him as child “brides” to sexually abuse. The victims were as young as nine years old. Through coercion and manipulation, Bateman regularly forced his victims to participate with him in individual and group sexual activities with adults and other children. He gave one of the victims to an adult male follower to be sexually abused, and on another occasion transmitted a live video stream of child sexual abuse to his followers. Bateman and others transported the victims between states to facilitate the sexual abuse, which continued until Bateman’s arrest on federal charges in September 2022.

Following Bateman’s arrest, his child victims were placed in the legal and physical custody of the Arizona Department of Child Safety. In November 2022, Bateman conspired with some of his followers to kidnap the victims from their custody placements. The conspirators succeeded in taking eight of the girls to California and then to Washington, where they were found by law enforcement and returned to Arizona.

Bateman was charged along with 11 of his adult followers, all of whom have also been convicted of charges related to the child sexual abuse conspiracy. Two of Bateman’s co-defendants were convicted at trial by a jury, and the others were convicted by guilty plea. Several other defendants have already been sentenced, and the remaining defendants will be sentenced in the coming months.

The Sacramento Bee adds:

Samuel Rappylee Bateman took 10 child “brides,” some as young as 9, and regularly raped them, court documents say. His followers, the girls’ fathers, allowed this abuse, according to prosecutors. Bateman grew a following in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and Nebraska in 2019 by holding himself out as the new “prophet” of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamist subset of the Mormon church, according to court documents.

In 2012, FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs was sentenced to prison in connection with sexually abusing children, prosecutors said. Jeffs’ criminal case is the focus of the 2022 Netflix documentary “Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey.” According to prosecutors, Bateman “controlled every aspect” of his child “brides’” lives and forced them into group sex acts with other adults and children.

After Bateman’s arrest in September 2022, he came up with a plan to have the girls kidnapped from Arizona Department of Child Safety custody, according to prosecutors. Eight of the girls were abducted by his co-conspirators before law enforcement rescued them, prosecutors said.

A judge has sentenced Bateman, 48, of Colorado City, Arizona, to 50 years in prison on charges of a conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and a conspiracy to commit kidnapping, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona said in a Dec. 10 news release. Colorado City, near the Utah border, is about a 370-mile drive northwest from Phoenix.

Bateman was expressionless in the courtroom when his minor victims and followers spoke at his sentencing on Dec. 9, The Arizona Republic reported. “Sam, you have no power over me,” one girl who was abused by Bateman said, according to the newspaper. ”I hope you feel the pain you caused me as you sit rotting in your cell.”

Bateman was a follower of Jeffs, who denounced him from prison, the Associated Press reported. Before growing his following, Bateman traveled to Canada In February 2019, when he tried to preach his ideas and wanted to marry his 13-year-old daughter, prosecutors said. Batement wanted to “have a baby with her,” according to the sentencing memorandum, which says his wife at the time “immediately divorced (him), obtained a restraining order against him, and protected her daughter.” Bateman went on to travel between Lincoln, Nebraska; Cedar City, Utah; Monument, Colorado; and Colorado City, Arizona, to grow his following and claim “wives,” according to his plea agreement. One man gave five of his minor daughters and a step-daughter to Bateman as “brides,” prosecutors said.

None of the marriages were legally official, according to prosecutors. In the sentencing memo, prosecutors detailed how “the young victims were made to sleep naked every night, whether it was in bed with (Bateman) or on the floor around his bed.” “He would choose a couple of girls to sleep with him each night, which meant they had to have sex with him,” prosecutors wrote. Bateman controlled every part of the girls’ day, according to prosecutors, who said he made them sing to him each night, had them prepare his meals and his baths, and had them “confess minor infractions.”

The women and girls were traded “like property” with other men, the sentencing memo says. Bateman transported the girls through different states to “facilitate the sexual abuse,” which ended in September 2022, when he was arrested on a child endangerment charge, according to prosecutors. A few months later, Bateman schemed to kidnap the girls from their child custody placements in Arizona, resulting in eight of them being abducted to California, and then Washington, prosecutors said. The girls were brought back to Arizona by law enforcement, according to prosecutors.

Eleven of Bateman’s adult followers have been convicted in connection with the child sexual abuse ring, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Multiple followers of Bateman have been sentenced, according to prosecutors, who said a few others will be sentenced within the next several months. “The amount of harm you caused is nothing short of unmeasurable,” U.S. District Judge Susan Brnovich told Bateman at his sentencing,

The Arizona Republic reported. A psychiatrist who evaluated Bateman determined he’s “mentally ill” and “delusional,” his legal counsel, Russo, wrote in a court filing. He asked the court to sentence Bateman to 20 years in prison. According to Russo, the psychiatrist suggested Bateman was indoctrinated into believing “criminal” behavior was normal during his upbringing. Bateman will serve his prison sentence until he’s 98, according to prosecutors. “You should not have the opportunity to be free and never have the opportunity to be around young women,” Brnovich told Bateman in court, according to the Associated Press.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Anthony Strickland Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison for Sexually Assaulting Young Girls

1 Comment
pastor anthony strickland

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 December 2024, Anthony Strickland, pastor of Freedom Center in Bono, Arkansas (no web presence), pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to ten years in prison.

In a previous case (June 2019), Strickland was charged with felony rape and second-degree battery.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported at the time:

Jonesboro police said a Memphis hospital contacted the department last week after a 43-year-old woman came in with several injuries. She told police that 53-year-old Anthony Lee Strickland had attacked her, the affidavit said.

She said Strickland was intoxicated, and she gave investigators a “detailed account” of him hitting her at least two times in the face before raping her, according to the affidavit.

Officials said officers found three guns in Strickland’s car seat when they arrested him during a Wednesday traffic stop.

Authorities charged the Jonesboro resident with felony rape and second-degree battery.

Strickland is a pastor at the Freedom Center, a congregation he started in 2003, according to police and business records filed with the Arkansas secretary of state.

Phone numbers and social media accounts listed under the church’s name appeared to be deactivated on Friday.

Strickland was free on a $125,000 bond that he posted Thursday evening, according to the Craighead County sheriff’s office.

A judge set a no-contact order with his alleged victim and required Strickland wear an ankle location monitor.

According to the Jonesboro Sun:

The rape charge was dropped in July 2019 by then-Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington, and Strickland pleaded guilty to second-degree domestic battery and was sentenced to 60 months of probation.

On October 8, 2021, KAIT-8 reported:

A former Craighead County pastor faces up to 60 years in prison following his arrest for rape.

Jonesboro police arrested 55-year-old Anthony Lee Strickland of Bono on Oct. 6 on suspicion of rape and second-degree sexual assault.

According to the probable cause affidavit, the two victims claimed Strickland sexually assaulted them at his home.

On Friday, Craighead County District Court Judge Tommy Fowler found probable cause to arrest Strickland and set his bond at $150,000. The judge also ordered he have no contact with the victims.

According to the Jonesboro Sun, Strickland has now been officially charged with rape:

A former pastor has been charged with rape and second-degree sexual assault in a case involving a then-11- to 13-year-old girl and her 11-year-old sister.

District Judge Tommy Fowler found probable cause to charge Anthony Lee Strickland, 55, of Bono on Friday. Fowler set Strickland’s bond at $150,000.

According to the probable cause affidavit, the older girl, now 18, told her parents that when she stayed over about five to seven years ago with Strickland, who was a friend of the parents for 20 years and pastor of their church, he watched a movie with her. She said Strickland began rubbing her privates and asked her if it felt good.

The victim said she was able to get away and run downstairs.

After the victim’s mother was made aware of what happened with the older daughter, she sat down with her other children and asked them to tell her and her husband if anyone had touched them inappropriately and not be afraid to tell them.

The older girl briefly told her siblings what happened to her, and her 11-year-old sister broke down crying and said, “Momma, he did that to me, too,” the affidavit states.

The younger girl said Strickland began rubbing her private parts and she attempted to yell and scream. She said Strickland covered her mouth and said “shhhh.”

She said Strickland digitally penetrated her. She told him she needed to go to the bathroom and ran and got into bed with her brother.

On December 16, 2024, Strickland pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to ten years in prison.

The Sun reports:

After his case was postponed 11 times, and almost a decade after the crimes occurred, a former minister has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting young girls.

Anthony Lee Strickland, 58, of rural Bono, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of second-degree sexual assault, according to court records. He had originally been charged in 2021 with one count of rape and one count of second-degree sexual assault involving two girls whose parents attended his church.

Strickland was the founder of Freedom Center, a congregation he established near Bono in 2003.

One of the victims disclosed the crime after she turned 18. According to the court information, the incidents occurred between October 2015 and December 2016.

After turning 18, the older girl told her parents that when she spent the night with Strickland, he watched a movie with her. She said Strickland began rubbing her genitals and asked her if it felt good.

The victim said she was able to get away and run downstairs, according to a court affidavit.

After the girls’ mother was made aware of the allegations, she sat down with her other children and asked them to tell her and her husband if anyone had touched them inappropriately and to not be afraid to tell them.

One of the younger children spoke up to say a similar situation happened to her, too. That child would have been under the age of 7 at the time.

Rape carries a potential penalty of up to life in prison. Under Arkansas law, Strickland could have received 20 years for second-degree sexual assault.

Strickland had previously been charged in 2019 with rape and felony domestic battery in the second-degree. The following year, he pleaded guilty to the domestic battery charge and the rape charge was dropped. Court records show Strickland was placed on five years of probation.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Former Catholic Youth Worker Brian Werth Sentenced to 37 Years in Prison for Child Pornography Crimes

1 Comment
brian werth

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 2018, Brian Werth, a youth worker at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in Rockville, Maryland, was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison for the sexual abuse of a church teenager.

The Bethesda Magazine reported:

A former youth minister at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in Rockville was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for the sexual abuse of a teen parishioner, according to Montgomery County prosecutors.

Brian Patrick Werth, 34, had been arrested in 2016 in connection with the abuse of a then-16-year-old girl, to whom he had sent explicit text messages for two years and had sexual contact with her earlier that year. He was charged with a fourth-degree sex offense, sexual abuse of a minor and second-degree assault.

Judge Karla Smith sentenced Werth to one year for the sex offense charge and two years for the assault charge, according to a State’s Attorney’s Office press release. The two terms will be served consecutively, followed by five years of probation with COMET, a sex offender monitoring program that will include periodic polygraph and psychosexual testing. Werth is also required to register as a sex offender for 15 years.

Smith went beyond state guidelines, which recommend zero to six months for the charges, in the sentencing. Ramón Korionoff, a spokesman for the State’s Attorney’s Office, said the sentence was appropriate.

“It is our hope that this above-the-guidelines sentence will send a strong message that people in position of authority and trust must not abuse that power over the young people they are supposed to be serving,” he said in a statement. “Hopefully, yesterday’s sentence will be the first step in healing for the victim and the church community in this matter.”

….

Werth, who lived in Montgomery Village at the time, had known the victim through the church, and learned that she “adored him,” according to prosecutors. They began texting, and police later discovered he had sent graphic and sexual texts to her since the summer of 2014.

On about May 20, 2016, Werth kissed the teen and had other inappropriate sexual contact with her during a youth event at the church, according to police.

St. Elizabeth’s had fired Werth in 2016 after the pastor received a complaint against him that summer, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Washington at the time. The pastor contacted the Archdiocese’s Child and Youth Protection Office, which then reported the case to county police.

After his release from prison, Werth was accused of one count of solicitation of a minor to engage in the production of obscene matter, three counts of possession with intent to distribute pornography, and ten counts of possession of child pornography.

In 2021, the Maryland State Police reported,

A Prince George’s County man was arrested and charged Tuesday after a Maryland State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigation developed evidence supporting charges of possession of child pornography and the attempted solicitation of a minor.

The suspect is identified as Brian Werth, 37, of Beltsville, MD. Werth, a registered sex offender, is charged with solicitation of a minor to engage in the production of obscene matter, three counts of possession with intent to distribute pornography and 10 counts of possession of child pornography. He was taken to the Maryland State Police College Park Barrack for processing before being transferred to the Prince George’s County Detention Center, where he is being held without bond.

On June 24, the Maryland State Police Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force received a CyberTip report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children involving the distribution of child pornography online. The investigation led to the identification of the suspect and his residence in Prince George’s County.

Through the course of the investigation, troopers discovered that Werth had also been communicating with a minor in North Carolina. Troopers, with the assistance of Homeland Security Investigations, arrested Werth Tuesday as he went to visit his probation officer in Hyattsville, Maryland. Investigators also served a search warrant at the identified suspect’s residence.

Finally, Werth had his day in court and was convicted of on two counts of production of child pornography; coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity; and committing a crime involving a minor by a registered sex offender. Werth was sentenced to 37 years in prison.

WUSA-9 reports:

A 39-year-old registered sex offender was convicted by a jury Wednesday on multiple charges related to creating pornography involving minors. 

After a three-day trial, Brian Patrick Werth, a 39-year-old from Beltsville, was found guilty by a jury on two counts of production of child pornography; coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity; and committing a crime involving a minor by a registered sex offender. 

Prosecutors said between January and June 2021, Werth pressured a 14-year-old and 15-year-old girl to create sexually explicit content and share it with Werth via apps. The teens testified that he used coercion methods such as showing them porn with other teens, flattering them and helping them buy lingerie and “school girl outfits.” 

During that same time period, prosecutors said Werth was also talking to an 11-year-old girl and asking her for nude photos. 

Werth faces a minimum of 25 years in federal prison, up to 50 years for the child pornography charges, and an additional 10-year mandatory consecutive sentence for the commission of a new offense involving a minor while being required to register as a sex offender, and between 10 years and life in prison for coercion and enticement of a minor. If and when he’s released from prison, he will be required to continue registering as a sex offender. 

….

Werth’s previous conviction stems from a 2016 case where he was accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl he allegedly spent two years grooming. 

“There was an extended period of grooming,” Assistant State’s Attorney Hannah Gleason said at the time of his arrest. “He’s a danger to this juvenile and to the community.”

Werth was a youth minister at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in Rockville at the time and was accused of abusing her at a youth ministry “lock-in” overnight event.

“She felt helpless to resist or object to the defendant’s advances and solicitations based upon their historical relationship and her belief the defendant had been so helpful and kind to her in the past,” investigators wrote in court documents.

The Daily Voice adds:

Beltsville resident Brian Patrick Werth, 40, has been sentenced to 37 years in prison after being convicted by a jury at a three-day trial for producing child sexual abuse material.

Werth was convicted of coercing and enticing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct and engaging with a minor as a registered sex offender.

According to court documents, between January 2021 and June 2021, Werth communicated with underage girls, ages 11 and 15, through Internet-based applications WhatsApp and Kik. 

During these interactions, prosecutors said that Werth persuaded, coerced, and enticed the minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct by producing sexually explicit videos of themselves. 

Additionally, Werth engaged in child sexual abuse as a member of the Maryland Sex Offender Registry for a previous sex offense conviction.

In addition to his prison term, Werth was also ordered by a judge to serve 25 years of supervised release. He also must register as a sex offender where he resides, is employed, and where he is a student when he is released.

Werth also is barred from having contact with children under the age of 18 without prior permission. He also will submit to computer monitoring.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Richard McGee Accused of Sexual Misconduct with a Minor Girl

0 Comments
pastor richard mcgee

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.

Richard McGee, pastor of Embrace Me Ministries in Bossier City, Louisiana, and retired deputy chief of Bossier City Police Department, stands accused of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile.

KTBS reports:

The former second-in-command at the Bossier City Police Department is now wearing an ankle-monitoring device so that authorities can track his movements as he awaits trial on criminal charges alleging sexual conduct with an underage girl.

In addition to being fitted with the GPS device after a court appearance Thursday morning, Richard Broom McGee, 57, also was served with a protective order to stay away from the alleged victim.

The investigation that led to the arrest of McGee, BCPD’s now-retired deputy chief, arose out of a corruption investigation by Louisiana State Police, sources told KTBS News.

McGee, who was deputy police chief from 2015-23, was arrested earlier this week after a Caddo Parish grand jury indicted him for felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile. He is free on $150,000 bond.

Authorities allege there was sexual misconduct in Caddo Parish involving a babysitter, beginning when she was in her early teens and continuing for several years. They would not provide details about how McGee knew the alleged victim.

The State Police investigation that led to those charges began in late 2022 or early 2023 after authorities received information that suspects in criminal cases had gotten tips from inside the Bossier City Police Department that officers were about to conduct raids, sources told KTBS News, speaking on condition they not be identified because it is an ongoing investigation.

No charges have resulted from that investigation. But sources told KTBS News that while State Police detectives were investigating that case, they got complaints of sexual misconduct by McGee involving underage girls in Caddo and Bossier parishes, with one case occurring in the late 1990s.

No charges have been filed against McGee in Bossier Parish, but prosecutors in Caddo Parish are expected to use a provision of Louisiana law that allows them to use evidence of sexual misconduct involving another female to try to show a pattern of behavior.

The Caddo District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the case. State Police are continuing their investigation.

McGee’s defense attorney, Eric Johnson of Minden, said his client denies wrongdoing. He will be arraigned on Jan. 9.

“Mr. McGee looks forward to facing these allegations in court and we feel confident he will be completely exonerated,” Johnson said. 

McGee is also a minister and has been a pastor at Embrace Me Ministries in Bossier City for 13 years.

A 30-year veteran, he was deputy chief of police in Bossier City until January 2023, when he was placed on paid leave for undisclosed policy violations. He then retired

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Josh Lough Accused of Domestic Violence

1 Comment
pastor josh lough

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.

Joshua “Josh” Lough, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Canal Winchester, Ohio, stands accused of two counts of domestic violence.

The Roys Report reports:

An Ohio minister, who encouraged husbands to honor and praise their wives, was recently arrested on assault charges related to the alleged physical abuse of his wife and daughter, according to police reports.

Joshua Lough was charged in Franklin County (Ohio) Municipal Court with two counts of domestic violence – assault and battery, both misdemeanors. According to court personnel, he was released on a personal recognizance bond this week.

….

According to a Dec. 8 complaint, Lough slammed his wife’s head against a hardwood floor The assault reportedly left marks on her arms and a “large knot behind her right ear.” 

….

Lough denied to police he hit his wife but claimed she had “mental problems,” and they were fighting and grabbing each other, according to an arrest affidavit. Lough is also accused of slapping his daughter, court records show.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Quote of the Day: The True Meaning of Christmas by John Hardin

3 Comments
santa claus drowns

My partner, Amy Gustin, had a great idea the other day. This is not at all unusual for her. A lot of my columns begin with one of her great ideas, and this is one of them. The other day, Amy was perusing some books about the cave paintings at Lascaux and Chauvet while contemplating the flora and fauna of Ice Age Europe, and speculating about the Paleolithic origins of certain pagan European Christmas symbols, when she said this: “Environmentalists should take over Christmas.”

“What?” I replied. She explained that a lot of European pagan Christmas symbols celebrate the Boreal Forest and an arctic climate. We have Christmas trees. Christmas is the only time of year when snow is popular, and Santa lives at the North Pole and gets around on a sled pulled by caribou. All of these things remind us of the Arctic, and they should remind us that the Arctic is undergoing dramatic changes due to global climate change.

Can you think of a better symbol for global climate change than Santa Claus? First, he drives a zero-emission, carbon-neutral vehicle, and he’s been doing it for centuries. Second, everything Santa owns faces imminent destruction, unless we can stop the sea ice from shrinking. Santa, Mrs. Claus, all of the elves, and the whole toy factory are headed straight for a watery grave at the bottom of the ocean unless we stop global warming now.

….

Coca-Cola has done a great job of making the polar bear into a symbol of Christmas, and we should adopt that symbol wholeheartedly. Instead of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus, put a mother polar bear and her two cubs in your nativity scene. I’m all for wise men, if you can find any, but how wise can your men be if they’re standing next to a hungry polar bear?

The global climate crisis affects everyone, and it’s time to make Christmas into a holiday for everyone. From now on, Christmas is about the North Pole and the gift of a stable climate. Being born doesn’t get you a holiday, in my book. Jesus has a holiday — it’s the one he lived and died for, and Christians should go ahead and do Easter big. But Christmas is too important to let Christians hog it to themselves. Besides, Christmas is better without Jesus.

We’ve still got Santa Claus, but now Christmas is about saving Santa. We’ve got reindeer and sleigh bells, snow and Christmas trees and we’ve got all of the animals coming together to help their friend the polar bear. We’ve got the Nutcracker to help us crack the nut of global climate change, and we can re-edit the Charlie Brown Christmas Special so that Linus’ big speech reflects the holiday’s bold new direction. Everything you love about Christmas will still be there for you, but now Christmas has a mission.

— John Hardin, Like You’ve Got Something Better To Do, The True Meaning of Christmas, December 18, 2017

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Christmas: A Plea to Evangelicals Who Evangelize Non-Christian Family Members

7 Comments
confrontational evangelism
Evangelical Tom “shares” the gospel with Atheist Jean

Christmas: it’s that time of year. Joy to the World. Handel’s Messiah. Cookies and fudge. Eggnog. Shopping. Evergreen trees decked with ornaments and lights. Cards. Presents. Ugly sweaters. Family gatherings. Excited grandchildren. Ah, the wonders of the Christmas season.

But there’s one aspect of Christmas hated by non-Christians, and that’s their Evangelical relatives and friends using the holiday as an opportunity to evangelize those they deem lost and headed for Hell.

From tracts stuffed into Christmas cards to Christian-themed gifts, evangelistically-motivated Evangelicals make sure that their non-Christian family members and friends know that Jesus is the Reason for Season and that unless they know The Prince of Peace, They will Have No Peace.

Even worse are those Evangelicals who make a concerted effort to talk to unsaved relatives about their spiritual condition at family Christmas gatherings. Told by their pastors to use the Christmas season, with its focus on joy and family, as an opportunity to witness to the lost, Evangelicals make concerted efforts to put in a good word for Jesus whenever they have an opportunity to do so.

We’ve all been there. We’re hanging out with our family at the annual Christmas gathering: eating Mom’s food, swapping childhood stories, drinking wine, laughing, and enjoying life. And out of the corner of our eye, we see Evangelical Uncle Bob coming towards us. Oh shit, we say to ourselves, not THIS again. “This” being Uncle Bob snuggling up to you so he can tell you for seemingly the hundredth time that Christmas is all about Jesus, and that the greatest gift in the world is the salvation that God offers to every sinner. Sinner, of course, being you. And as in every other year, you will politely listen, smile, and think in your mind, just one time I’d like to tell Uncle Bob to take his religion and shove it up his ass. Your thoughts will remain unspoken, and after your evangelizing relative is finished extolling the wonders of Jesus and his blood, you say to him, just as you do every other year, Hey, Uncle Bob, how ’bout them Cowboys? You know that there is one thing that Uncle Bob loves to talk about almost as much as his savior Jesus, and that’s America’s team, the Dallas Cowboys.

Several years ago, Fundamentalist Calvinist pastor John Piper reminded his fellow cultists of the importance of giving non-Christian relatives prayed-over, Bible-saturated books during the Christmas season. Piper wrote:

The Christmas season is ripe for “reviving your concern” (Philippians 4:10) for the spiritual wellbeing of friends and family members. We may lament the expectations of gift-giving and the excesses of holiday spending, but we can take it as an opportunity to invest in eternity by putting God-centered, gospel-rich content into the hands of those we love.

Next to the Bible, perhaps the most enduringly valuable gifts you can give this Christmas are books soaked in God and his grace. Online articles, sermons, and podcast episodes change lives and sustain souls, but they don’t make for typical material Christmas gifts. Printed books, on the other hand, wrap well, and can be just as life-changing and soul-saving, and more.

As Christmas approaches, we wanted to remind you of our recent titles from the team at Desiring God. We’ve done our best to saturate them in the Bible and fill them with God and his gospel, and we’ve prayed over them again that they might be a means of God’s grace not only for you, but also your loved ones…

Randy Newman, Senior Teaching Fellow for Apologetics and Evangelism at the C.S. Lewis Institute, suggests that Evangelicals look for opportunities to share bits of the gospel:

I know this sounds counterintuitive. In fact, to some, this may sound like downright heresy! Some of us have been trained to “make sure to state the whole gospel” or “their blood will be on our hands.” To me, that sounds a bit like a lack of trust in the sovereignty of God. In our day of constant contact (through email, texts, tweets, etc.) we can trust God to string together a partial conversation at Christmas dinner to a follow up discussion the next day, to a phone conversation, to numerous emails, etc. Some of our unsaved family members and friends need to digest parts of the gospel (“How can God be both loving and holy?”) before they can take the next bite (“Jesus’ death resolves the tension of God’s love and his holiness.”)…

Back in the days when I was a fire-breathing Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher, I encouraged church members to use the Christmas holiday as an opportunity to witness to their unsaved relatives. Hell is hot and death is certain, I told congregants. Dare we ignore their plight? Remember, the Bible says that if we fail to warn our wicked relatives of their wicked ways and they die and go to Hell, their blood will be on our hands. Despite my attempts to guilt church members into evangelizing their relatives, not one member reported successfully doing so. Most of them, I suspect, ignored my preaching and said nothing to their relatives. And those who did likely made half-hearted attempts to interject Jesus into family Christmas discussions. Regardless, not one person was saved as a result of our Christmas witnessing.

Let me conclude this post with a heartfelt, honest appeal from non-Christians to Evangelicals bent on witnessing to family and friends during the Christmas season:

Christmas is all about love, joy, peace, and family. Religion, like politics, is a divisive subject, and talking about it will certainly engender strife and resentment. I know that you think our negative response toward your evangelistic effort is the result of our sinfulness and hatred of God. What you fail to see is that our irritation and anger is the result of your unwillingness to value family more than you do Jesus. Besides, we’ve heard your Jesus shtick before. We get it: we are sinners, Jesus died on the cross for our sins and resurrected from the grave three days later. If we want our sins forgiven, we must repent of our sins and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. If we refuse God’s wonderful offer of salvation and eternal life, when we die, we will go to Hell. See? We heard you. There’s no need for you to keep doing your best imitation of a skipping record. If we ask you a question about your religion, then, by all means, answer it. We asked, and we wouldn’t have asked if we didn’t want to know. However, if we don’t ask, please keep your religion to yourself. If you truly love and respect us, please leave us alone.

If you choose to ignore our request, we will assume that you are determined to be an asshole for Jesus. While we will likely walk away from you, we might, depending on our mood, decide to give you a dose of your own medicine by sharing why we think your God and Jesus are fictitious. We might even challenge your so-called Bible beliefs. You see, we know a lot more about Christianity than we are telling. It’s not that we don’t know. We do, and we find the Christian narrative intellectually lacking. While Jesus gives your life meaning, purpose, and peace, we have found these same things in atheism, agnosticism, humanism, paganism, or non-Christian religions. We don’t need what you have because we already have it.

Most of us who are non-Christians will spend the Christmas holiday surrounded by believers. In many instances, we will be the only non-Christian in the room. While we love the Christmas season — with its bright colors, feasts, and family gatherings — contemplating the fact that we will be the only atheist at the family Christmas gathering can be stressful. We understand that Christmas is considered a Christian holiday. When Christian prayers are uttered, we will respectfully bow our heads.  When Christmas carols are sung around the hearth, we will likely join in (many of us like singing Christmas songs). We will do our best to blend in.

Please, for one day, when we are all gathered together in expression of our love for one another, leave Jesus and your religion at the door. By all means, if you must talk about Jesus, seek out like-minded Christian family members and talk to them. When talking to us, let’s agree to talk about the things we have in common: family, childhood experiences, and our favorite football team.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

A Gerencser Family Christmas

12 Comments
gerencser grandchildren christmas 2013

(The grandchildren in this photo are now in middle school and high school.)

For many of us, Christmas is a wonderful time of year. For the Gerencser family, our two granddaughters who are away at college come home, Nana bakes cookies, makes fudge, and all sorts of delicious things sure to fatten your waistline, presents are bought for sixteen grandchildren, all in preparation for Christmas at our home. Dinner will be prepared — this year, we are eating Italian — and at the appointed time, everyone will gather in our home — twenty-six people, in all — to eat and open presents. Complaints will be heard from our children, saying our house is too small for such a large gathering, and Grandpa will say, as he has for years, “As long as we are alive, we are having Christmas here. End of discussion.”

Our home will be filled with jokes and laughter from aunts and uncles, fueled by wine and beer, as our grandchildren impatiently wait for Uncle Josiah to give them a present. “One at a time,” he sternly tells them, as he searches for a gift for each child. Our out-of-high-school grandchildren will receive cash, and those nine through eighteen will open gifts they picked out for themselves when they went shopping with Nana. Except for Levi, our oldest grandson — his gift falls to me. Those Nana takes shopping are all girls. Grandpa wisely stays away from all that estrogen. For the younger grandchildren, we buy them gifts off submitted lists, usually from Amazon or other online retailers. Typically, our children will give Polly and me gifts. Usually, we receive gift cards to restaurants, though one year we received four tires for our automobile. Thanks are exchanged, hugs are given, tissue paper and bags recovered to use for the umpteenth Christmas, and just like that, our family Christmas is over.

For the Gerencsers, Christmas is all about family. But that wasn’t always the case. In the 1980s, I decided that Christmas was a pagan holiday. So, we stopped celebrating Christmas. No tree, no decorations, no gifts. I determined — note the singular pronoun, Polly never agreed with me on Christmas, but as the patriarch of the family, my word was law — that we would spend Christmas day serving the poor, hungry, and homeless. A worthy ambition to be sure, but we could have done both if my extreme religious views hadn’t gotten in the way.

Eventually, I saw the error of my way, and, over time, Christmas returned to our home. I determined we could keep Christ in Christmas while humbly participating in American consumerism. These days, our family Christmas celebration is mostly secular, though Christmas hymns can be heard playing in the background. While the Gerencsers are a thoroughly secularized family, some of our children will attend religious services. We are not hostile towards religion. Each to their own is the motto we all live by. Gone are the days when Polly’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) parents tried to cajole us into attending a Christmas Eve service at their church. (Both of Polly’s parents are dead.) I still remember shortly after we deconverted Mom pushing us to go to church with her — a forty-five-minute service not even church members wanted to attend. We declined. Instead, we went to midnight mass with our Catholic son and daughter-in-law. Boy, was Mom upset with us. We wouldn’t to church with her, but we went to a cult instead. The mass, by the way, was a wonderful experience. We no longer believed the Christmas message, but the music, ceremony, and homily were inspirational, even to two unbelievers.

These days, Polly and I have concluded that Christmas is whatever you want it to be. For us, Jesus isn’t the reason for the season; family, food, and good times are what make our Christmas’s so wonderful.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Is Jesus the Reason for the Season?

7 Comments
jesus is the reason for the season

Evangelicals would like us to believe that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” Churches will perform acts of charity for poor, disadvantaged people — often forgetting and ignoring these same people the rest of the year. Many congregations will put crèches in front of their buildings, complete with lights to glaringly remind atheist passersby that Christmas is all about the virgin-born baby in the manger. Scores of churches will have special Christmas programs, including cantatas, candlelight services, and plays performed by children. The plays will often contain mythologies about the Christmas story. Rarely are children ever taught the facts about Jesus, his parents, his birth, the star, and who was in attendance. For secularists, this isn’t a big deal. Why let facts get in the way of telling a good story? But for people committed to the inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of the Bible, you would think they would want to get the Christmas story right.

Certainly, Christmas, along with Easter, is a big deal for those who worship Jesus — he who came to Earth to save his people from their sins (that’s right, Jesus originally came to only save Jews). However, once you get beyond the clichès, yard decorations, carols, programs, and perfunctory charitable giving, Christian spending on gifts, decorations, and other trappings of the season is right up there with that of the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. So, I have to ask, Is Jesus really the reason for the season? Or has Christmas become a secular holiday; one that is an admixture of religious iconography and Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, fir trees, flashing color lights, and the like? I suspect it’s the latter.

Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.