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.
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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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.
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.
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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.”
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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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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…
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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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.
Jason Yates, the former CEO of My Faith Votes –an Evangelical voter ministry that supported Donald Trump in the last election — has been charged with eight counts of possessing child pornography.
The former president of an evangelical get-out-the-vote nonprofit, which seeks to motivate Christian voters to promote family values and “biblical truth” in the public square, was charged Monday (Nov. 4) with eight counts of possessing child pornography.
Jason Yates, former CEO of My Faith Votes, was charged during a video court hearing in the District Court of McLeod County, Minnesota. State officials allege that from February 2023 to July 2024, Yates possessed a hard drive with digital pornographic images of minors under 14 years of age.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension began investigating the 55-year-old Yates at the end of July after a relative, identified in court documents as “Witness #2,” accidentally discovered a hard drive containing over 100 images of child porn in Yates’ office, according to a statement of probable cause filed in the case. That relative told a second relative, identified as “Witness #1,” who turned the hard drive over to law enforcement. According to court documents, the hard drive allegedly contains both still images and videos of pornography involving minors under 14.
During an interview on Sept. 13, Yates allegedly confirmed that the hard drive did not belong to Witness #2 but declined to give law enforcement a password for encrypted files on the hard drive.
“Defendant stated that he had a prior conviction, which had been expunged, related to CSAM/child pornography,” the complaint filed against Yates alleges.
An attorney for Yates declined to comment.
For much of its history, Jason Yates was the CEO and president of My Faith Votes. He was still listed as CEO on the group’s website as of Aug. 19 but his name and image were removed sometime after that date.
“In early August 2024, the My Faith Votes board of directors separated Jason Yates from My Faith Votes and board member Chris Sadler assumed the position of Acting CEO. Over the last three months Chris has been working with the dedicated My Faith Votes team to encourage millions of Christians to vote, pray and think biblically about this election in America,” a spokesperson for My Faith Votes told RNS in an email.
The group’s website blames Christians for failing to stand up against “secular progressives” — which the group faults for a host of social ills.
“As a result of apathy at the voting booth and in public life, we’ve suffered devastating moral decay, declining religious freedom, immoral national debt, and the erosion of traditional family values,” the group’s website reads.
In early July, a few weeks before the hard drive allegedly containing child porn was turned over to police, Yates wrote an op-ed for The Washington Times, urging Christians to fight “sexually deviant” messages aimed at children, mainly about LGTB issues.
“This infernal programming is being downloaded into our children, and it becomes far easier when it finds no resistance in our public square — when it is allowed to fill the void left by the absence of our faith,” he wrote.
A biography of Jason Yates from April 2024 describes him as having left a corporate career in 2015 to become CEO of My Faith Votes. Along with promoting voting among Christians, he served on the board of several other ministries.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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 April 2024, Bret Bymaster, a former youth pastor at The River Church Community in San Jose, California, was accused of six felony counts of child sexual abuse.
A prominent Silicon Valley leader and former pastor has been arrested and charged with six felony counts of child sex abuse, after being under investigation this year for allegations that surfaced about his time as a youth ministry leader at a popular South Bay church.
Brett Bymaster faces time behind bars for alleged lewd acts with a child who was as young as eight during his time at The River Church, according to charges by county prosecutors. He was arrested and booked at the Elmwood Correctional Facility on Thursday. His bond was set at $400,000, but at a Friday arraignment hearing, Judge Hector Ramon revoked his eligibility for bail at least until the next scheduled hearing on April 19, according to prosecutors. San José Spotlight first reported Bymaster’s alleged abuse in January.
Ramon ordered Bymaster not to contact the victim documented in the charges. He was also ordered not to contact another unnamed individual, according to the case’s prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Christopher Paynter.
Paynter said it’s too early to tell how much jail time Bymaster faces if found guilty of all charges. The trial date is a moving target.
“It’s an ongoing investigation,” Paynter told San José Spotlight.
Bymaster’s attorneys Renee Hessling and Dana Fite did not respond to requests for comment.
The arrest comes after a second investigation by The River Church in three years regarding Bymaster’s action, when five parishioner families say a 2021 probe led by church leaders failed to uncover the extent of his abuse and excluded one of the most serious claims — sexual abuse.
At the time, Bymaster denied the allegations in a statement to San José Spotlight.
“In recent months, we have discovered that there were profound flaws in the original pastoral inquiry process and in the denominational report (which was never released publicly but only summarized by senior leaders),” church families wrote in an open letter in January. “We now believe that the inquiry process and the senior leadership withheld crucial information about the nature and scope of the abuse.”
Bymaster, a recognizable figure in advocacy and political circles, was still listed as a founder and executive director of the Healing Grove Health Center, a clinic that serves low-income families, on its website as of Friday afternoon.
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Bymaster served as a youth pastor and director at The River, nestled on Lincoln Avenue, for five years beginning in 2014. He quit after getting a critical job review in August 2019 based on complaints about his leadership from church families.
Yet two years later, youth from the congregation raised more significant concerns about Bymaster.
The church launched an internal inquiry in 2021 led by its own leader the Rev. Theresa Marks, according to an email sent in January from three top church leaders, including lead pastor Brad Wong.
Marks found that Bymaster was a “toxic leader who was spiritually abusive,” and encouraged church leaders to summarize her findings in a letter. The probe from Marks, which included interviews with 25 individuals, also questioned the church’s management of Bymaster.
“We take full responsibility for not doing the job of keeping our youth and youth volunteers safe in our youth ministry. We did not provide adequate oversight of the youth program or our former youth pastor,” church leaders wrote in an August 2021 letter.
But parents of the alleged victims say the letter swept damning details under the rug and questioned whether some of the incidents should’ve been categorized as sexual misconduct, harassment or abuse.
In November 2024, more charges against Bymaster were filed.
A well-known nonprofit director was hit with more charges alleging that he sexually abused a minor when he formerly worked as a youth pastor, following a separate case alleging sexual abuse against another minor was filed in April.
Brett Bymaster, 48, the executive director of Healing Grove Health Center, was charged Nov. 19 with one felony count of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 years old and one felony count of lewd and lascivious acts on a child aged 14 or 15, according to court documents. The alleged abuse began in 2013 and continued through 2019.
He was arrested and charged in April with six counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a minor who was between the ages of 8 and 14 during the time of the alleged abuse — a similar range of years, from 2013 to 2019. Bymaster was released on $50,000 bail that same month pending trial.
He was placed on leave from Healing Grove Health Center following the first charges. Bymaster posted $100,000 bail on the new charges, according to the DA’s office. His arraignment is scheduled for Jan. 14.
Bymaster formerly worked as a youth pastor at The River Church in San Jose between 2014 and 2019. He resigned in 2019 due to his leadership style not aligning with the teachings of the church, according to court documents.
The new charges allege that Bymaster took advantage of a position of trust to commit the abuse and befriended the victim, referred to as Jane Doe in court documents, in the pursuit of committing the sexual abuse. Documents added that the victim was “particularly vulnerable.”
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Bymaster’s attorneys, Renee Hessling and Dana Fite, said in a statement: “These are not new allegations; in fact, the District Attorney’s Office has known of this alleged victim since the beginning of their crusade against Mr. Bymaster. These new accusations were originally considered meritless, but in an attempt to bolster a weak case against Mr. Bymaster, (prosecutors) elected to file these additional charges which stem from an ever-evolving story.”
In response to the statement by Bymaster’s lawyers, Sean Webby, director of communications at the DA’s office, said: “We’ll try our case in court.”
Allegations against Bymaster arose in January when The River, the church where he formerly worked as a youth pastor, sent a letter to the church community detailing their independent investigation into his behavior when he worked there between 2014 and 2019. The church had first investigated Bymaster in 2021 due to complaints about his leadership and concerns about sexual misconduct, according to court documents.
The church’s investigation alleged that Bymaster was too graphic when teaching sex education classes to youth, that he showered naked with teen boys at a camp, that he made a comment about a minor girl’s chest and that, in one instance, he touched a female’s upper thigh inappropriately, according to court documents.
The church conducted its second investigation in 2023 after parents complained that the first investigation “downplayed some of the possible criminal elements” allegedly committed by Bymaster, according to court documents. Between 12 and 13 students made “complaints related to the sexual misconduct” to the church, according to court documents.
Brett Bymaster’s wife, Angela Bymaster, contacted the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday and strongly defended her spouse.
“My husband is completely innocent of all of these charges,” Angela Bymaster said. “He is guilty only of preaching the gospel of Jesus and building a successful Christian clinic which serves the poor, which has somehow made us a lot of friends and a lot of enemies.”
Angela Bymaster characterized the allegations as attempts by enemies to destroy his reputation and their clinic.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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.
Abraham Jatnel Coronado, a youth leader with a La Luz Del Mundo affiliated church in Redlands, California, and oversaw an off-site church property known as Ebenezer Ranch, was found guilty of thirteen counts of sexually abusing minor church members and sentenced to life in prison. La Luz Del Mundo is a non-trinitarian, charismatic organization.
A youth leader at a notorious church in Redlands has been sentenced to 175 years to life in prison for sexually abusing three young members of the congregation.
Abraham Jatnel Coronado was found guilty last Friday of 13 felony counts of sexual abuse against the young church members.
Coronado was a youth leader at a La Luz Del Mundo church in Redlands and oversaw an off-site church property known as Ebenezer Ranch.
According to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, Coronado was often left in charge of children without parental supervision and the children would often spend the night in his trailer located on the ranch.
Coronado, the DA’s Office said, was “well respected and known to have a close relationship with the Church headquarters’ main leaders.”
For several years, Coronado used his position to prey on young boys in his care, prosecutors said. The victims ranged in age from 12 to 17.
The first victim to come forward was abused by the church leader when he was a teenager. He testified during the trial that Coronado repeatedly sexually abused him, and in a recorded conversation between the two, Coronado never denied the abuse and said he “wanted this [sex] to happen.”
The first victim reported the abuse in 2021 after seeing Coronado taking another young victim under his wing, concerned that he would continue to victimize other children at the ranch.
The second victim testified that Coronado groomed him from a young age to “become his boyfriend” and would often isolate the child from other children at the ranch. The victim testified to experiencing “many acts” of sexual abuse at the hands of Coronado that began when around 2010 when he was only 13. When he turned 14, Coronado became more forceful and raped the child, he testified.
A third victim testified that Coronado would “slap his buttocks, rub his chest, and rub his pelvis against him in a sexual manner” when he was between the ages of 12 and 13. The victim said he’d never experienced an adult behaving like that toward him.
Coronado eventually admitted to the sexual abuse of the children, acknowledging he was aware of their age at the time and his position of power over them. In an apology letter written to his victims, Coronado said he was sorry that his “stupidity” caused them such “suffering and humiliation.”
La Luz Del Mundo is a controversial megachurch headquartered in Mexico that has been mired in allegations of sex abuse perpetrated by church leaders. In 2019, Naasón Joaquín García, the religious organization’s main leader and a self-proclaimed apostle of Jesus, was arrested at LAX and eventually pleaded guilty to charges of sexual abuse of a child.
He is currently serving a 17-year prison sentence for those crimes at the California Institution for Men in Chino
Last year, García was indicted for allegedly possessing child pornography on his tablet, which was found during his arrest at LAX.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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.
Craig Daugherty, educated at Dallas Theological Seminary — an Evangelical institution — and director of religious education for the U.S. Army at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, stands accused of two counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.
State prosecutors have charged the director of religious education for the U.S. Army at Fort Wainwright with having repeated sexual contact with a minor under 13 years of age at his home.
Craig Lasley Daugherty, 58, was charged Wednesday with two counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.
An affidavit signed by Investigator Al Bell says Alaska State Troopers “received a report” of the abuse on Tuesday. The same day, charging documents say the minor told a forensic interviewer that Daugherty directed them to make skin-to-skin contact with Daugherty’s genitalia during the week of Nov. 18.
The child also reportedly told interviewers the abuse had been going on since 2021, but the two counts on the indictment only list dates for 2024 incidents.
When interviewed, Daugherty recounted two instances of sexual contact and said the child had initiated it, according to the charging documents.
In the report, Daugherty told investigators the child pulled down his (Daugherty’s) shorts and “swiped and grabbed at his [genitalia],” and added he should have told the child’s father about it a while ago.
The documents say the investigation revealed Daugherty serves as a “local youth pastor,” and a resume posted on Daugherty’s LinkedIn page shows he’s been the director of religious education since Dec. 2020.
A resume shared on LinkedIn shows Daugherty also has professional experience in retail and finance. Beginning in 2014, he worked as a retail trainer at Stripes Convenience Stores in Lubbock, Texas.
Before that, Daugherty held a variety of positions in Texas and Europe — in schools and the military — with most of the jobs relating to education or youth ministry, according to the resume. His resume also states that he received his Master of Arts in Christian Education from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1996.
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Daugherty’s case was assigned to Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Kirk Schwalm. He was arraigned Wednesday afternoon and remanded to Fairbanks Correctional Center.
A bail order says Daugherty is being held in custody under a $300,000 appearance bond and $250,000 performance bond.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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 Houston III, formerly the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Dauphin Way United Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama, along with other Methodist churches and ministries, was charged with electronic solicitation of a child and traveling to meet a minor for a sex act.
Additional details have emerged after a Tuscaloosa pastor and retired business school instructor at the University of Alabama was charged with electronic solicitation of a child and traveling to meet a minor for a sex act.
As Patch previously reported, the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force announced Tuesday that James Gorman Houston III, 66, was arrested after an undercover operation conducted earlier in the day.
A deposition obtained by Patch says that Houston made contact with a profile or account on an online dating app on Monday that was operated by an undercover officer with the West Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force.
The undercover officer then took on the persona of a minor under the age of sixteen, before informing Houston of the minor’s age.
Houston’s immediate response to this information, according to the deposition, was sexually explicit in its graphic language, as Houston believed he was talking to a minor.
As the conversation continued, Houston explained that he wanted to “teach” and “help you become confident in knowing what you want,” before going on to explain the various sex acts they would try.
The following day, Houston and the undercover officer made arrangements to meet at an undisclosed address in Tuscaloosa County.
The deposition says that Houston traveled to the location, exited the vehicle, and began walking toward an undercover law enforcement officer whom he believed to be the minor he had been communicating with.
Houston was then taken into custody by Task Force agents without incident.
Once in custody, Houston was read his Miranda rights and acknowledged communicating with and traveling to meet the undercover officer whom he believed to be a minor.
His occupation on the deposition is listed as “self-employed.”
An examination of Houston’s professional background also shows at least one other instance of controversy in the church, going back to 2010.
Originally from Eufaula, Houston is a former pastor at First United Methodist Church in Tuscaloosa, where he worked from 2012 to 2019, and a retired senior instructor of management who taught for 12 years in the Department of Management at UA’s Culverhouse College of Business.
He is the son of former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Gorman Houston Jr., who died in September of this year.
Houston was awarded the Capstone Heroes Award from the University of Alabama for 2015-2016 but his name has since been scrubbed from the list of recipients on the UA website.
At one time, he also worked for eight and a half years as the coordinator of UA Interfaith in the UA Dean of Students Office and is a founding pastor of Pure and Simple Lifestyle Christianity.
Houston retired from the University of Alabama in 2022 and his LinkedIn account says he has been working as a private LSAT instructor since 2019.
Nevertheless, various media reports show that Houston once served as pastor of Dauphin Way United Methodist Church in the Mobile area but resigned in 2010 amid allegations that he violated ethical standards.
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Electronic solicitation of a child is a Class B felony in Alabama and those found guilty of the offense can face up to 20 years in prison.
If convicted, Houston would also have to register as a sex offender.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
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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 2022, Danny Pitts, pastor of the now-closed GracePoint Church in Decatur, Alabama, was accused of sexual intercourse by “forcible compulsion” with an individual over 12 but under 16. Pitts pleaded not guilty and had a March 2023 trial date.
A former Alabama pastor pled not guilty to sexually abusing an underage person.
The former pastor of GracePoint Church in Decatur, 59-year-old Danny Duane Pitts, was arrested in November 2021 and charged with two counts of sodomy.
According to the indictment, Pitts is accused of sexual intercourse by “forcible compulsion” with an individual over 12 but under 16.
Pitts was released on bond in September of 2021, with stipulations requiring him to surrender his passport, wear an ankle monitor and not leave the state.
According to a court form signed by Pitts in November 2021, he listed his employer as GracePoint Church.
GracePoint Church deleted its Facebook page and website after the arrest and is listed as permanently closed on the internet.
The trial for a Morgan County pastor arrested and charged on two counts of sodomy has been delayed once again to March 6.
Danny Duane Pitts of Hartselle was arrested in November 2021 on charges of first-degree and second-degree sodomy.
Pitts pleaded not guilty to both charges and later posted a $500,000 bond. As part of the bond, he was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet, hand over his passport and not travel out of state.
The trial was originally set to begin in November 2022, but a judge delayed the case until Monday.
The judge presiding over the case cited a heavy caseload for why the decision was made to continue the case again.
A former Alabama pastor now free on $50,000 bond is facing several counts of statutory rape and sexual battery in Grundy County, Tennessee, while he awaits trial in Alabama on other child sex allegations.
Charges in Tennessee against Danny Duane Pitts, 59, of Hartselle, Alabama, stem from an investigation launched Jan. 5 with Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents working jointly with Hartselle police probing allegations related to incidents that happened between August and November 2019, according to TBI spokesperson Susan Niland.
Pitts is charged with aggravated statutory rape, two counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and statutory rape by an authority figure, Niland said in a news release issued Monday. Pitts surrendered Monday at the Grundy County Jail and was freed the same day, according to Grundy County Sheriff Clint Shrum.
Shrum said Tuesday in a telephone interview he knew little of the case since it arose from a TBI investigation with links to Alabama.
Mike Taylor, 12th Judicial District attorney general, said Alabama’s State Bureau of Investigation contacted the TBI on the case since that state’s investigation crossed the state line.
In the Tennessee case, Pitts and a 17-year-old boy traveled from Alabama to Grundy County where the alleged abuse took place in 2019, Taylor said Tuesday. Taylor said the teen is believed to have been a member of the church where Pitts worked as pastor in Morgan County, Alabama.
Pitts faces a November trial in Alabama on two counts of sodomy involving another minor in Morgan County, according to court records in Decatur, Alabama.
“It is a case that occurred several years ago and it involved a member of his church, a young man that he had befriended,” Morgan County District Attorney Scott Anderson said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
“We allege an inappropriate relationship took place that was criminal in nature,” Anderson said. He said he couldn’t share any further details on the Alabama case as it continues to develop.
“I’m sure the Grundy County DA and I will be exchanging notes,” Anderson said.
The investigation in Morgan County was a joint probe involving the Hartselle Police Department, Anderson’s office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and members of the North Alabama Violent Crimes Task Force, according to a Nov. 5 news release from the police department. Pitts was later released on a $500,000 bond.
After a two-year delay, Pitts had his day in court and was found guilty of second-degree sodomy.
A former pastor has been found guilty of sodomy after days of testimony.
According to court officials, Danny Duane Pitts was found guilty of second-degree sodomy Thursday after a trial in Morgan County.
Pitts was originally indicted on two counts of sodomy in 2021, and his trial began on Monday.
Testimony in the trial began on Tuesday with former Hartselle Police Investigator Amy Crouch.
Crouch testified the then-teenage accuser disclosed details about several illegal sexual encounters between him and his pastor, Danny Pitts.
At that time, Crouch testified cases that were sexual in nature were to be drafted into a report and submitted to the DA’s office to decide whether it would move forward to a grand jury. She testified her investigation took nearly a year, but then she sent it over to prosecutors.
The victim in the case also tearfully testified that Pitts took advantage of him early on in counseling sessions. The victim said he initially kept it to himself but later confided in his family, who offered support if he wanted to press charges.
Last Monday, Pitts was sentenced to twenty years in prison for his crimes.
The former pastor of GracePoint Church in Decatur, convicted of sodomizing an underage boy, was ordered at an emotional sentencing hearing Wednesday morning to serve 20 years in prison.
“In my humble opinion, 20 years is not enough, but it’s the maximum I can give you,” Morgan County Circuit Judge Charles Elliott told Danny Duane Pitts, who appeared for the first time in stripes and shackles. Pitts, 61, of Hartselle, was arrested in 2021 and charged with first and second-degree sodomy after the case against him – first reported to police in 2007 – sat cold for years.
At trial in late October, the prosecution argued that Pitts “groomed” a member of his church – a boy around 12-13 years old at the time – and began a years-long criminal sexual relationship with him.
A jury found Pitts guilty of second-degree sodomy on Oct. 24. Pitts was found not guilty of first-degree sodomy, which entails forcible compulsion, and not guilty of lesser included offenses of first- and second-degree sexual abuse.
Pitts’ sentencing was the first order of business Wednesday morning in a packed courtroom. Several supporters of the now-adult victim sat in the gallery. The victim stood next to Chief Assistant District Attorney Garrick Vickery before Elliott’s bench. Next to them, Pitts stood alongside his defense attorneys, John Berry and Brandon Little. Each side was offered the opportunity to speak.
Vickery said he only just started working for the DA’s Office when the case against Pitts began. “Now, here I stand feeling old,” he said. “This case lasted for years.” He asked Elliott to give Pitts the maximum sentence and alluded to other potential victims. Pitts faces charges for a similar offense in Tennessee, according to Vickery.
The victim spoke next and said the case’s verdict showed him that his voice matters. “Justice has brought me a sense of peace I never thought possible,” he said. “I’m here to reclaim the narrative and tell my own story. Enough is enough. Just because you are made a victim doesn’t mean you need to stay one.” He, too, asked for the maximum sentence for Pitts.
Pitts and his attorneys declined to speak.
“I have wrestled with the facts of this case since trial,” Elliott said. “Having been on the bench for almost six years now, I have seen some pretty gruesome stuff when it comes to physical abuse and sexual abuse.” Pitts showed little emotion as Elliott spoke of the “ripple effects” of such abuse, deeming Pitts’ crime a form of “spiritual abuse.” Attorneys on both sides stood with their hands folded behind their backs. Berry and Little looked at the floor or, occasionally, the ceiling. “That has caused me to wrestle more with my own faith than anything else,” Elliott continued. “I have struggled with trying to find the right words to say to you today. I have spent a lot of time studying my Bible.” Elliott then spoke directly to the victim and said he was sorry for what had happened to him. Court officials brought boxes of tissues to supporters of the victim, some of whom lightly sobbed as Elliott spoke.
“It is my prayer that you know in your soul what he did was evil,” he said. “It was not God’s will what happened to you. It is my sincere hope that your relationship with God is made whole again.” Elliott said the case reminded him of a bible verse: “Beware of false prophets.” He then sentenced Pitts to 20 years imprisonment with the Alabama Department of Corrections, with a $30,000 fine and a $10,000 victim compensation fee.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 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.
