James Stangle II, lead elder at New Life Assembly of God (New Life Church) in Circleville, Ohio was arrested Wednesday and charged with soliciting a prostitute.
A lead elder for New Life Church was arrested by police and charged with soliciting a prostitute.
Plain clothes officers were working a busy part of the city when they busted James Stangle II in broad daylight Wednesday afternoon. Stangle was later released from the PIckaway County Jail.
Nobody answered the door at the Stangle family home. Neighbors said they were shocked that Stangle was arrested. “They have been pretty private and to themselves other than I guess probably church people coming over to see them,” said Kenny Hunt who lives across the street.
Nobody of New Life Church would talk on camera about the arrest. But the lead pastor Tim McGinnis said the following statement:
My name is Tim McGinnis, lead pastor of New Life Church. The church is aware of the alleged situation, and will fully cooperate with authorities. There is no other evidence except for information that is available to the general public to make any further comments regarding the alleged charge. We fully support the judicial process and believe truth prevails. The alleged charge did not take place on church grounds and was not associated with any church activity. We support Jim, his family and everybody involved with our prayers. New Life will continue as a growing fellowship to promote the love of Jesus to our hurting community.
Hunt said he thinks people of faith should be held to a higher standard.
“I have nothing for ministers. He is just another man that had an urge and decided to try to get it satisfied other than at home,” said Hunt.
The criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance. … Therefore, the Commission recommends … [that the] possession of marijuana for personal use no longer be an offense.
— National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972
Forty-five years later, marijuana is still absurdly considered a Class 1 drug by the Federal government. If U.S. Justice Department head Jeff Sessions has it his way, people will be arrested and incarcerated for personal marijuana use. Sessions is an anti-science idiot who thinks the drug policies of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are good ideas.Sessions thinks the failed war on drugs should be ramped up, with drug users prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana—so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful,” Sessions said while speaking with law enforcement officers Wednesday. “Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.
We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it’s in fact a very real danger.
I think one of [Obama’s] great failures, it’s obvious to me, is his lax treatment in comments on marijuana… It reverses 20 years almost of hostility to drugs that began really when Nancy Reagan started ‘Just Say No.
You can’t have the President of the United States of America talking about marijuana like it is no different than taking a drink… It is different… It is already causing a disturbance in the states that have made it legal.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
Louis Brouillard, 96, spent a lifetime sexually molesting church children. Told by Catholic church officials to ” try to do better and say prayers as a penance,” Brouillard now faces eighty-seven lawsuits over lifelong predatory behavior.
Haidee V Eugenio, a reporter for the Pacific Daily News, writes:
A priest accused of sexual abuse was sent from Guam to Minnesota for “help with his personal problems” in 1981, and later barred from serving as a priest after questions arose about a house guest from the island, according to a statement from the Diocese of Duluth.
Louis Brouillard, 96, is accused of sexually abusing minors in 87 lawsuits filed since the beginning of the year. He served as a pastor, teacher and Boy Scout leader on Guam, and he has admitted to molesting 20 or more boys here.
In three recent lawsuits, he is accused of paying to bring boys from Guam to Minnesota, where he continued to abuse them. One of the lawsuits alleges he moved a boy into a two-bedroom retirement home apartment where he lived with his elderly parents.
Brouillard would have been about 60 at the time.
“Father Bouillard was sent to the Diocese of Duluth in 1981 in the hope that he would receive help with personal problems,” said Kyle Eller, communications director for the Diocese of Duluth.
“While in the diocese, he did assist at several parishes. In 1985, Father Bouillard’s faculties to serve as a priest in the Duluth Diocese were revoked after questions were raised about a guest from Guam staying with him,” Eller wrote.
Brouillard, who continues to receive a monthly retirement check from the Archdiocese of Agana, was ordained as a priest on Guam in 1948 and served here until 1981. He is being deposed in Minnesota this week in connection with the Guam lawsuits.
In 2013, Brouillard’s name appeared on a list of priests released by the Diocese of Duluth with credible allegations of child sexual abuse against them.
Although the Diocese of Duluth did not specify the nature of Brouillard’s personal problems, he had at least one criminal sexual conduct complaint filed against him shortly before leaving the island, according to a lawsuit.
In 1980, Brouillard was moved to St. Williams Catholic Church in Tumon, now the Blessed Diego de San Vitores Church, according to a lawsuit. While at St. Williams, according to a separate lawsuit, he was named in a criminal sex abuse complaint filed with police.
Former altar boy and Boy Scout Felix Manglona said he was abused by Brouillard when he was 13, and “after several years passed, Felix was assisting the statistician at the Guam Police Department under the cadet program. While performing his daily duties to review police reports and collect data, Felix reviewed a police report pertaining to Brouillard. Upon information and belief, an incident occurred at the St. Williams Catholic Church in Tumon involving Brouillard and a minor boy, resulting in a sexual abuse complaint being filed against Brouillard,” the lawsuit states.
Brouillard’s sexual activities involving children had been known to church officials for at least a decade before he left the island, according to an affidavit Brouillard signed last year.
“My actions were discussed and confessed to area priests as well as Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner who had approached me to talk about the situation. I was told to try to do better and say prayers as a penance,” he said in the affidavit.
Baumgartner died in 1970.
While at St. Williams, according to a lawsuit, Brouillard abused an altar boy, identified in court documents only as F.S.L. to protect his privacy. In 1981,when Brouillard moved to Minnesota, he invited F.S.L. and a friend to spend the summer with him. While there, according to the lawsuit, the boys were sexually abused.
Another lawsuit, filed by plaintiff J.T., stated that he was abused by Brouilard on Guam from 1972 to 1976. Around 1981, Brouillard brought him Minnesota, telling his parents he would be able to attend college there.The lawsuit said Brouillard tried to rape him in Minnesota.
More than 140 sex abuse lawsuits have been filed against the Archdiocese of Agana, 16 clergy members and three others affiliated with the church since the beginning of the year.
Richard Jacklin, who is a priest affiliated with Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Goodrich, Illinois, was charged yesterday with sexually assault a disabled adult.
Father Richard E. Jacklin, who assists with Masses at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Goodrich, is scheduled to be in court today for his bond to be set after he was arrested by Illinois State Police on Tuesday and charged with sexually assaulting a resident at Shapiro Developmental Center in Kankakee.
The 65-year-old Jacklin has been preliminarily charged by state police with criminal sexual assault by force and sexual misconduct of a person with a disability.
“We are still gathering information,” Kankakee County State’s Attorney Jim Rowe told the Daily Journal on Wednesday.
Rowe said he would not comment further until after Jacklin’s bond is set in Kankakee County court today. Jacklin, who was ordained June 2, 1984, has been assigned to Sacred Heart since 2005, according to the Diocese of Joliet. Jacklin was assigned as resident at St. Rose of Lima Church in Kankakee from 1996-2005.
Early Tuesday morning, my wife, Polly, got up to use the bathroom. Upon her return to bed she said to me, something is not right. My heart is beating like crazy. I could tell she was quite worried, so I got my blood pressure machine and had Polly check her blood pressure. Sure enough, Polly’s blood pressure was 158/100 and her pulse rate was 158. On Monday, Polly had her annual health exam. Her blood pressure was 120/70 and her pulse rate was 65.
I told Polly to get dressed so I could take to her the emergency room in nearby Bryan. Polly is Mrs. Healthy. She’s had never been to the emergency room and her only hospitalizations were for six pregnancies. Polly has worked for Sauder Woodworking for almost twenty years. She’s never missed a day’s work. She has been to the emergency room and hospital numerous times with me, but her experiences on Tuesday were new to her.
The ER doctor quickly determined that Polly had atrial fibrillation-rvr — a heart rhythm problem. The upper chambers of Polly’s heart were out of sync with the lower chambers. Left untreated, atrial fibrillation can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Polly was given several medications and put on an IV. The doctor informed her that she would likely be in the hospital overnight. For the next six hours, I watched the heart machine as it recorded Polly’s heart rate bouncing all over the place. The medication eventually brought her heart rate down, but it was still bouncing from 80 to 110. Finally, around 2:00 PM, Polly’s heart decided it was tired of jumping around and returned to a normal rhythm. The doctor released her at 5:00 PM and we came home, exhausted from a busy, frightening day.
I had let Polly’s parents know that she was in the hospital. That afternoon, Polly called her Mom to let her know what was up. During the conversation, Polly’s Mom tried to evangelize her, saying, that [Polly’s heart problem] makes me think of eternity. Polly quickly and angrily shut off this line of conversation, curtly saying, I’m fine. (It has been nine years since Polly and I left Christianity. Her parents have yet to have a conversation with us about why we are no longer Christians.)
The conversation ended shortly thereafter. Polly’s Mom told her, I’m praying for you daily. At a loss as to what to do about our turn from Jesus to Satan, Mom and Dad have taken to daily praying for us. In their minds, if we would just get back in church all would be well. They hold out the hope that we will return to Jesus and start serving him again. Deep down I wonder if Mom doesn’t think I am the reason for Polly’s deconversion, and that once I am dead and gone and she is free of me, her daughter will return to Christianity. Little does Mom know that Polly is much more strident in her unbelief than I am. I may be more vocal about it than Polly is, but she has zero interest in anything associated with religion.
As Mom was giving her evangelistic spiel, this daughter of a Baptist preacher, wife of former Evangelical preacher, mother of six, and grandmother to eleven, raised her hand and gave the phone a middle finger salute. Polly will never tell Mom to fuck off, but the sentiment is there. She’s done with religion, and so am I.
Polly’s heart problem is a screaming reminder to us that life is short. Everyone expects me to die first. After all, I’ve been dealing with chronic health problems for twenty years. It makes perfect sense that I would be the one to make it to the crematorium first. However, life often does not make sense, nor is life fair. Proverbs 27:1 is right when it says, Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. I was reminded on early Tuesday morning that those I love and hold dear can be quickly snatched from my hands. Treat every day as your last. Someday, it will be.
Shane Cruse, pastor of Restoration Life Church in Hamilton, Mississippi, was arrested Saturday and charged with “illegal sex act with a minor and prohibited use of electronic communication system to procure a minor.”
A Mississippi business owner and pastor was arrested in Kentucky as part of an online sex sting operation.
Michael Shane Cruse, 46, of Columbus, was arrested Saturday in Danville, Kentucky, WCBI reported, and charged with an illegal sex act with a minor and prohibited use of electronic communication system to procure a minor, also a sexual offense.
Cruse is accused of communicating with whom he believed was a 16-year-old boy online and arranging to meet for a sex act. Cruse was actually communicating with an undercover law enforcement agent in Boyle County, Kentucky.
He was released by the Boyle County Sheriff’s Office on a $20,000 bond.
A Hamilton pastor and local businessman is behind bars in Kentucky on a charge of an illegal sex act with a minor through use of electronic communications.
Shane Cruse, 46, was arrested in Danville, Kentucky, on Saturday as part of a Boyle County Sheriff’s Office online sting operation targeting child sex offenders.
BCSO said a detective, posing as a 16-year-old male, met Cruse online and agreed to meet Cruse in Kentucky to have sex.
Cruse came into public attention in 2012 when, on behalf of the church he pastored, he offered a $175,000 bid to purchase the Lee Middle School property, which had been put on the market a year earlier. Then the pastor at Point of Grace Church on 18th Avenue in Columbus, Cruse told the Columbus Municipal School District board he hoped to expand his church’s operations through the purchase. His offer was declined because it did not comply with state criteria governing the sale of school properties.
Cruse later moved into the restaurant business, purchasing Cattleman’s Steak and Fish on Tuscaloosa Road in Columbus in October 2016 and, just three weeks ago, purchasing the Highway 45 North restaurant Little Tokyo, which he renamed Samurai Sushi and Steakhouse.
Cruse is listed as pastor at Restoration Life Church in Hamilton. According to the church’s Facebook page, it was launched in July 2016 ….
Chris Cunningham, former priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Palmdale, St. Lawrence Martyr Catholic Church in Redondo Beach and St. Louise de Marillac Catholic Church in Covina, (all in California) stands accused of sexually abusing numerous children.
Stephanie Baer, a reporter for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, writes:
A former priest who served in Southern California and was named in a 2015 child sexual abuse lawsuit allegedly molested at least four additional children at parishes in Palmdale, Redondo Beach and Covina, according to lawsuits recently filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Civil complaints filed in July and October allege former Rev. Chris Cunningham sexually molested boys ages 10 to 15 from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Palmdale, St. Lawrence Martyr Catholic Church in Redondo Beach and St. Louise de Marillac Catholic Church in Covina.
The lawsuits, which name the churches and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as defendants, also allege the archdiocese knew of the allegations against Cunningham.
The archdiocese did not investigate, opting instead to transfer the priest to various assignments and destroy the complaints, according to the court filings. None of the plaintiffs is named in the lawsuits.
Robert Flummerfelt of Canon Law Services, which is representing Cunningham, said in an email that the former priest denies the allegations and has “never sexually abused anyone.”
he new lawsuits come after a 2015 case filed by the same attorney, Anthony DeMarco, on behalf of a plaintiff who he said was sexually molested as a 12-year-old boy at St. Louise in Covina from 2001 to 2002.
“We’ve since that time learned of quite a few more victims of his abuse,” DeMarco said Tuesday. “Folks in charge of youth at every parish he was at leading up to St. Louise and at St. Louise were aware of that conduct and nearly all of them reported their suspicions and concerns to their superiors.”
All three complaints describe Cunningham as regularly having underage boys alone with him in his church living quarters, regularly wrestling with them on church grounds and regularly meeting with them without chaperones outside of church.
Cunningham was removed from active ministry in 2006.
The archdiocese said in a statement that Cunningham was reassigned from St. Louise in 2004 “due to management issues not related to misconduct” and that the church “was not aware of any alleged sexual misconduct until 2015,” when the initial lawsuit was filed.
“The archdiocese received allegations of improper boundary violations concerning Fr. Cunningham in August 2005,” the archdiocese said in the statement. “According to archdiocesan policy, the matter was investigated and an announcement concerning the allegations was made at the parish informing the parish community.”
Stephen Howard, pastor of Muscoy United Methodist Church in San Bernadino, California, was convicted last week of ” 32 counts of sexual abuse, including lewd acts upon a child, oral copulation of a person under 16 years old and sodomy of a person under 18.”
The pastor of the Muscoy United Methodist Church, charged with multiple counts of child molestation involving boys who attended the church, was found guilty by a San Bernardino County jury last week, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office said.
Stephen James Howard, 58, was convicted Friday, Oct. 27, of 32 counts of sexual abuse, including lewd acts upon a child, oral copulation of a person under 16 years old and sodomy of a person under 18, court records showed. He is being housed at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga with no bail, according to jail records.
Howard is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 29 in San Bernardino.
Howard was arrested and charged in March 2014, according to court records. Detectives had investigated reports that month that Howard had molested boys at several locations, including San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials have said.
The department’s Crimes Against Children took over the case and found two victims, a 14-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man from Rancho Cucamonga, sheriff’s officials said. The older victim said the abuse began when he was 9, and continued into adulthood, authorities noted.
Twelve of the counts involve acts committed between 1990 and 2000, according to court records. The most recent charges involve acts committed between 2011 and 14.
“I am deeply grieved by this sad situation and earnestly ask for your prayers for all who are affected,” United Methodist Bishop Minerva G. Carcano said in a 2014 interview. “As United Methodists we stand firmly against child abuse, sexual abuse and sexual misconduct.”
Howard had been lead pastor at the Muscoy United Methodist Church since 2001. He was also youth director at a United Methodist Church in Ontario from 1989 to 2001.
A former assistant pastor was sentenced to 13 years in prison Tuesday for sexually assaulting a girl that initially was covered up by church leaders and the girl’s father, the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said.
Robert Wyatt, 51, repeatedly sexually assaulted the now-15-year-old girl whose family attended Agape Bible Church in Thornton, prosecutors said.
Wyatt gained trust from the girl and her parents, and got access by home-schooling her in his residence.
The girl told investigators the inappropriate touching started when she was 12 and had been going on for nearly two years.
In March 2016, Wyatt offered to take the girl on a field trip but instead they went to a hotel where he sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said.
“Mr. Wyatt describes this as a ‘stupid decision’ but this wasn’t a mistake. He saw he could manipulate the victim and her family. It was a calculated, methodical decision by the defendant to take advantage of this young girl,” senior deputy district attorney Patrick Freeman said.
“He is a sexual predator.”
Church leaders and the girl’s father tried to keep Wyatt’s crimes from being reported to police.
“Those who attempted to hide him from justice share blame,” Freeman said.
“You were in a position of trust with the church and as her teacher,” Adams County District Judge Don Quick told Wyatt at the sentencing hearing.
“You preyed on her emotional and physical vulnerabilities. Over and over again you planned how to groom her so that you could commit these acts. You took advantage not just of her body but her heart, telling her that you loved her.”
Quick was also critical of church leaders and the girl’s father for how they shifted blame to her and trying to handle things internally.
“I’m still shocked at how certain adults responded to this,” Quick said. “She didn’t put him in prison. He put himself in prison.”
Wyatt pleaded guilty in July to attempted first-degree assault and sexual assault on a child.
He was charged last year with one count of sexual assault on a child, one count of sexual assault on a child as a pattern of conduct and one count of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust.
Police documents and former congregation members allege that Agape’s head pastor, Darrell Ferguson, knew about the allegations in July and refused to go to police.
A 16-page arrest affidavit describes evidence that Ferguson knew about the allegations by July 21, when Wyatt reportedly confessed the crime to the girl’s parents.
“Ultimately, Darrell and [the girl’s parents] agreed to not report the sexual assault to the police or social services because they were concerned with what would happen to Bob,” the affidavit alleges.
It is important to know when Ferguson found out about the alleged abuse because in certain circumstances, if a member of the clergy knows about child abuse and does not report it, it might be a crime.
The Problem Solvers pressed Ferguson on the issue. In a recorded phone conversation, he said he didn’t report it earlier to police or the congregation because “the sexual assault on a child, that wasn’t known until the arrest.”
Wyatt stepped down from his leadership position on July 21 and remained at Agape as a member of the congregation until his arrest.
On Tuesday, Ferguson was asked, “You’re saying you, as church leaders didn’t know that it was sexual assault against a child?”
Ferguson replied, “The, uh, the eldership, let’s see I’m just now getting on the highway here. The eldership, you’re asking when the eldership, when the leadership of the church discovered that it was sexual assault on a child?
“That happened the day of the arrest. That’s when that came out.”
Over the weekend, Ferguson sent a letter to the congregation apologizing for making what he describes as misleading statements.
“Dear Agape,
In my phone conversation with the reporter from FOX31, when I answered her question about when the leadership knew, I said it was when the arrest was made. I began my sentence with “The other elders … but that part was edited out.”
FOX31 edited Ferguson’s response for time in the story that aired. In no part of the interview did he specify he was talking about the other church leaders, excluding himself.
Since Ferguson is the head pastor at Agape, it was FOX31’s understanding that when Ferguson was asked “When did you as church leaders know?” Ferguson’s response was referring to himself too.
The rest of Ferguson’s letter to the congregation goes on to support FOX31’s interpretation of his answer:
“I did not intend to deceive her — I just wanted to make the point that the other elders did not know until the arrest. Nevertheless, I do think what I said was wrong. I knew she wanted to know when I found out, and I had been advised by our lawyer not to discuss that in the press, so I got flustered and just tried to divert to something I did want to talk about rather than answer her question. This was wrong, and it ended up being very misleading.”
Ferguson sent a separate statement to FOX31 over the weekend clarifying that he knew about the accusations of abuse before the other church leaders. He also said that under Colorado law, he does not believe that he had an obligation to report the suspected crime to police.
The full statement reads:
“Regarding the Bob Wyatt matter, it is very important to us at Agape Bible Church that all of our communications be completely accurate. To be clear, the statement about first becoming aware of the allegation on Monday applies to the other elders, but not to Pastor Ferguson, who did have prior knowledge. Also, it turns out the other elders actually became aware of the allegation of sexual abuse the day before the arrest.
It is not true that there was collusion with the father to withhold the information. The things that were said to Darrell by the family in confidential pastoral contexts in July were kept in confidence as required by Colorado law (C.R.S. 19-3-304 II and C.R.S. 13-90-107 (1) (c)). Any information that came to Mr. Ferguson outside of those confidential contexts was reported by Mr. Ferguson to the Child Abuse Hotline (report #667944).”
