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.
Peter Alatake, pastor of Holy Ghost Mission Church in Owo, Ondo state, Nigeria stands accused of raping a sixteen-year-old epileptic girl.
The General Overseer of the Holy Ghost Mission Church, Pastor Peter Alatake, has been arraigned before an Owo Magistrate court, Ondo State for raping a 16-year old epileptic secondary school student.
The victim was said to have been taken to his church for deliverance but Alatake ended up raping the girl severally. Alatake was alleged to have raped the girl between the 15 and 20th of April, leading to the victim developing complications in her vaginal and anus.
A medical test conducted at Medical Centre, Owo confirmed the complications before the suspect was arrested. Alatake was arraigned on a one count charge of unlawfully having carnal knowledge of a minor, an offence punishable under section 357 of the criminal laws of Ondo state.
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Presiding Magistrate, Olubumi Dosumu, granted bail in the sum of N500,000 and two sureties in like sum. The sureties, according to Dosumu, must be a general overseer of a reputable church in Owo and a Director in the civil service with national identity card, evidence of one year tax clearance and landed property in the magisterial district.
Joy Ryder, a former member of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, has filed a civil lawsuit against the church, Hyles-Anderson College, and David Hyles, the son of the late Jack Hyles.
An Indiana woman is suing the First Baptist Church of Hammond, alleging its youth minister repeatedly raped her as a teen girl in the late 1970s.
Joy Ryder, who now runs a support group for sex abuse victims, said she is trying to win justice not only for herself, but others similarly abused by the fundamentalist movement’s clergy over the decades.
She alleges officials of the church and Hyles-Anderson College put her at the mercy of David Hyles, son of the church’s charismatic leader, the late Jack Hyles.
She said once her family accused David Hyles of sexual abuse, the church covered up his wrongdoings.
Ryder, who spoke this week with The Times and gave permission to identify her by name, said the federal lawsuit is the only way left to hold church officials publicly accountable.
“You couldn’t go up against their authority. (David Hyles) told me that nobody would believe me,” she said.
She said the statute of limitations has passed on criminal charges, and the church hierarchy has repeatedly refused to respond to her accusations.
Her attorney, Robert Montgomery, filed a civil suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
It alleges David Hyles, Hyles-Anderson College in Schererville and the First Baptist Church of Hammond violated state and local law as defined by the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute.
Neither David Hyles, who now is affiliated with a different church out of state, nor a spokesperson for the First Baptist Church of Hammond, were immediately available for comment Tuesday.
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In the case surrounding the recent lawsuit, Ryder said her parents were church members and employees when she was being raped by David Hyles, then the church’s youth minister and son of Jack Hyles.
She attended Hammond Baptist Schools and Hyles-Anderson College during the 1970s and early 1980s.
She said David Hyles was 25, and she was 14 when he began to pull her aside from church youth groups to flatter her, select her as a member of the church’s traveling music group and gain her trust.
The suit alleges Ryder became concerned about David Hyles stalking her with repeated calls to talk and be with him. It alleges that when this was brought to Jack Hyles’ attention, he responded that Ryder “wasn’t special” and his son “did that with everyone.”
Ryder said she was a high school sophomore when David Hyles first assaulted her in his office at the church’s youth ministry building in downtown Hammond.
The suit alleges David Hyles “pinned her to the floor in his office and raped her.”
The suit alleges: “Multiple other girls accused (David) Hyles of sexual misconduct, similarly, to no avail.”
The suit alleges David Hyles sexually abused Ryder more than 50 times over two years inside church buildings as well as other locations during her travels with the church music group.
The suit also alleges David Hyles once ordered her to his home when his wife was out of town and threatened to reveal her to the congregation as a “slut” and have her parents fired from their church employment.
The suit alleges that once she arrived at his house, he forced her to perform oral sex and later laughed, “Bet you didn’t expect that, did you?”
It alleges David Hyles secretly put drugs or alcohol in her food and drink to make her more compliant.
The suit alleges Ryder finally informed her parents of the rapes after two years and brought her father with her to a meeting with David Hyles to confront him.
It alleges that after their meeting, her father personally informed Jack Hyles of the son’s wrongdoing.
It alleges the church responded by giving her father a lucrative job at Hyles-Anderson college “in exchange for his silence and agreement not to take the allegations to law enforcement.”
The lawsuit also alleges the church then moved David Hyles to a church in Texas, where his father had previously been a pastor.
The suit alleges child rape and sexual abuse by all church clergy, including those of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement, “are widely known” and have led to numerous later investigations, trials and convictions.
My “prayer” is that this lawsuit will be the first of many.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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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.
On March 30, 2019, Christopher Cox, pastor of Long Lake Church in Traverse City, Michigan, was arrested and charged with luring two men to his office and raping them after incapacitating them with methamphetamine and GHB.
Michigan State Police investigators interviewed a 19-year-old man who claimed Cox contacted him March 12 looking for a “drug buddy,” according to court records. Cox promised the man — who was homeless at the time — drugs and women if he came back with Cox to his home, the man claimed.
Cox gave the man meth to smoke and “CBD shots,” making the man “extremely inebriated,” according to a probable cause statement. Cox raped the man numerous times over the course of several hours that night, according to the account.
The accuser said Cox dropped him off at Safe Harbor the following morning, threatening to kill him if he told anyone about the night prior.
Records show the accuser went to Munson Medical Center where a sexual assault exam revealed bruising and redness “consistent with anal trauma.”
Mike McDonald, chairman of Safe Harbor’s executive board, said homeless people are much more likely to be victimized than the average person.
“It’s appalling to me that something like this could happen to anybody under any circumstances, especially by someone who purports to be a minister,” McDonald said.
A second man told troopers that Cox gave him meth sometime in October 2018 at Cox’s office in Traverse City — Moeggenberg did not immediately know the location. Like the account given by the other man, Cox gave the man meth and waited until he was high, drunk and incapacitated before assaulting him, despite the man’s efforts to fight him off, records show.
The man told Michigan State Police troopers that Cox stopped several hours later, claiming he had to get back to his wife and child.
“Based on what I know, I would be surprised if there weren’t more victims,” Moeggenberg said.
A search of Cox’s home and office uncovered items like lubricant, male enhancement pills, a blindfold and nylon webbing police suspect was used for bondage, records show.
They also found lighters, glass pipes, single-use syringes, meth and a substance police believe was GHB, known as the “date rape drug,” according to records. Moeggenberg said investigators also seized electronic devices. MSP’s Computer Crimes Unit searched the devices recovered during the March 18 search and uncovered “additional evidence,” according to a press release.
Yesterday, Cox pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Christopher Cox, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct in a plea deal that dismissed a laundry list of charges — including three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, extortion, delivering/manufacturing meth and three counts for possession of child porn.
A third-degree CSC carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years and requires registration as a sex offender. Initial charges could have netted a life sentence.
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 Lee Ramsey, a church-going man from Rocky Point, North Carolina, pleaded guilty Monday to 50 child sex charges. Ramsey befriended the victim at church. She was 13 at the time. This led to three years of sexual misconduct. Ramsey will spend 30 years in prison for his crimes.
Ramsey befriended the victim at church when the victim was 13. A year later he began raping her, and carried on a sexually explicit correspondence with her for the next three years.
When she turned 18, the victim told her parents about the abuse, which took place in both New Hanover and Pender counties.
“Thanks to the bravery of this victim, a child predator is going prison for nearly three decades,” David said in the release. “The Kure Beach Police Department conducted a stellar investigation, which made this plea possible and spared the victim the trauma of having to testify in court.”
An investigation by local detectives who trained at the National Computer Forensics Institute uncovered sexually explicit images and texts on Ramsey’s computer, leading to additional charges.
In addition to decades in prison, Ramsey will have to register as a sex offender for life.
The name of the church is not mentioned in any public news reports.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Yunior Beltres, pastor of Evangelistic Ministry of Columns of Fire (Ministerio Evangelistico Columnas de Fuego) in Miami, Florida, stands accused of repeatedly raping two young girls in his bedroom and forcing them to witness each other’s assault.
The Miami Herald reports:
Yunior Beltres, a 54-year-old citizen of the Dominican Republic, was charged with two counts of sexual battery on a minor, police said. The alleged victims are 9 and 10 years old.
The girls, whose relationship to Beltres was not disclosed, reported the abuse to police in July. They said the assaults occurred in May and June at his home in the 300 block of Northeast 118th Terrace in Miami.
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The congregation, also known as Ministerio Evangelistico Columnas de Fuego, is located on the second floor at 2052 NW 22nd Ct. in Miami, according to state records. Beltres has been affiliated with the organization since at least 1996, according to the records.
A woman who answered the phone number listed for the religious organization on Friday said that Beltres was a pastor at the congregation and that the accusations against him were false. She did not provide her name and hung up on a reporter.
In the voice greeting for the phone number, Beltres identifies himself as a pastor and wishes blessings on his callers.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Dan Broxterman, the former pastor of FUN CHURCH (now closed) in Hamilton, Ohio, was indicted recently on ten counts of rape. One alleged victim was under the age of thirteen. Local 12-News reports:
A Butler County grand jury indicted Dan Broxterman, 56, on Aug. 8. According to the indictment, the rapes occurred from 2014 through July 2019. Broxterman was a pastor and the lead singer of a tribute band. He also faces charges of gross sexual imposition and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
Tammy Mercer attended one of Broxterman’s churches from 2010 until 2013. She believes many people were fooled by him. But, she said she became suspicious after learning he was ordained by paying $50 online. She also said she found out he was allowing teenagers to sleep over at the church and engage in sexual activity.
Broxterman previously pastored Tree of Life Church (now closed) in Hamilton, Ohio. A church listing website had this to say about Tree of Life and its pastor:
We have church in the Hamilton Family Fun Center and always have a reason to laugh. Pastor Dan makes sure of that! The kids love us because of our 222 CLUB. The music is powerful and energetic. Come worship with us! Turning Hamilton Downside Up From The Outside In!
“Kids love us”, and our pastor loves kids too. He’s a pedophile who pays close attention to church children. Praise Jesus!
On Tuesday, Broxterman pleaded not guilty to additional charges of rape, gross sexual imposition and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. According to Local-12, at least one of the victims is under the age of thirteen.
According to Linkedin, Broxterman is the business development manager for Ohio Valley Insurance and Financial Group in Fairfield, Ohio. I suspect he is not doing much “developing” since he is sitting in jail with a $1 million bond.
Broxterman is the lead singer for PUSH — a DIO tribute band. Broxterman’s Twitter account mentions he is the lead singer for a called Holy Diver.
Cesar Guerrero, pastor of Mision Cristiana el Calvario Church in Sharonville, Ohio, is facing federal charges in connection with his alleged coercion of a minor female. He also faces allegations of rape and sexual assault.
The Highland County Press reports:
According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, the Sharonville Police Department received several complaints on Aug. 7 regarding the pastor of Mision Cristiana el Calvario Church and a minor female victim.
Guerrero allegedly contacted the 17-year-old victim through the Facebook Messenger app and told the victim he had dreamed of her dressed in white and walking in a dark place. The victim told the pastor she had been sexually molested in Guatemala.
It is alleged Guerrero told the victim that God was speaking to him and the only way to get out of the dark place was for her to have sexual relations with Guerrero. The pastor allegedly referred to this as a “cleansing process.
The affidavit details that Guerrero allegedly requested a nude video call with the victim as well as photos of her genitalia. He cited several biblical verses while making the request.
Further, it is alleged the victim met with the pastor at the Sharonville church on July 30. The pastor allegedly raped the victim.
On Aug. 9, officials with the FBI and Sharonville Police received information from a second alleged victim. According to the affidavit, the second victim had allegedly been sexually assaulted by the pastor on more than one occasion, beginning when the victim was 14 years old.
Guerrero allegedly told the second victim to show him how she kissed her boyfriend before assaulting her and telling her if she was a child of God she would obey him.
It is also alleged that Guerrero sexually assaulted this second victim on another occasion at his home.
“Angry, frustrated, can’t believe. You don’t believe in God no more. He’s been using God’s Word to tell the girls to do sexual things and the girls was really thought that was coming from God.”
Dan Broxterman, the former pastor of FUN CHURCH (now closed) in Hamilton, Ohio, was indicted recently on ten counts of rape. One alleged victim was under the age of thirteen. Local 12-News reports:
A Butler County grand jury indicted Dan Broxterman, 56, on Aug. 8. According to the indictment, the rapes occurred from 2014 through July 2019. Broxterman was a pastor and the lead singer of a tribute band. He also faces charges of gross sexual imposition and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles.
Tammy Mercer attended one of Broxterman’s churches from 2010 until 2013. She believes many people were fooled by him. But, she said she became suspicious after learning he was ordained by paying $50 online. She also said she found out he was allowing teenagers to sleep over at the church and engage in sexual activity.
Broxterman previously pastored Tree of Life Church (now closed) in Hamilton, Ohio. A church listing website had this to say about Tree of Life and its pastor:
We have church in the Hamilton Family Fun Center and always have a reason to laugh. Pastor Dan makes sure of that! The kids love us because of our 222 CLUB. The music is powerful and energetic. Come worship with us! Turning Hamilton Downside Up From The Outside In!
“Kids love us”, and our pastor loves kids too. He’s a pedophile who pays close attention to church children. Praise Jesus!
According to Linkedin, Broxterman is the business development manager for Ohio Valley Insurance and Financial Group in Fairfield, Ohio. I suspect he is not doing much “developing” since he is sitting in jail with a $1 million bond.
Broxterman is the lead singer for PUSH — a DIO tribute band. Broxterman’s Twitter account mentions he is the lead singer for a called Holy Diver.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Earlier this week, Richard Mick, the former pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Sandusky, Ohio — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation — was on trial again, facing 12 felony accounts for crimes allegedly committed against three children. Mick was previously convicted on these charges and sentenced to life in prison. During his trial, his attorney, K. Ronald Bailey, refused to participate in Mick’s defense. An Ohio appeals court, citing ineffective counsel, overturned Mick’s conviction and ordered a new trial. Surprisingly, K. Ronald Bailey is still Mick’s attorney.
Today, Erie County Common Pleas Court Judge Tygh Tone declared a mistrial, saying evidence withheld from the defense the prosecution could hurt Mick’s right to due process.
On Thursday, following two full days of testimony, including from all three victims, the trial came to an abrupt halt.
Defense attorney Meredith O’Brien made a mistrial motion in the morning after speaking to a Sandusky police detective who was about to be called as a defense witness. The detective provided the defense copies of police reports related to the investigation.
Included in those reports was a March 2019 Sandusky report detailing the detective’s interview with a relative of one victim, who already testified. That report was not given to defense attorneys by the prosecution during the evidence discovery process, O’Brien said.
During the interview, the relative provided information that was apparently inconsistent with the victim’s testimony in the trial. Tone said he also read the report, and said it details “more serious accusations than what the defendant was charged with.” Mick was indicted across two cases, merged into one for trial, in 2014 and 2016.
O’Brien argued that if the defense had that police report prior to the trial, it would have changed their entire strategy.
“Every witness would have been questioned differently,” O’Brien said. “This entire trial is now infected.”
Assistant Erie County prosecutor Paulette Lilly did not deny that the report wasn’t provided to the defense but argued the report shouldn’t be grounds for a mistrial as the allegations of one victim don’t affect those of the other two victims.
“The report is not an interview with a victim,” she said. “It’s the recollection of (the relative’s) conversation with (the victim) three years earlier. It’s not a statement of (the victim’s.)”
After hearing arguments from both sides, Tone decided that the incident hurt Mick’s right to due process and ruled a mistrial. He said they will eventually set a pretrial hearing to discuss details of the new trial.
Currently, Mick is out on bond. Hopefully, the third time is a charm, and once the iron jail doors finally clang shut on the “good” pastor, they will remain shut.
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 Mick, the former pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Sandusky, Ohio — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation — is on trial again, facing 12 felony accounts for crimes allegedly committed against three children. Mick was previously convicted on these charges and sentenced to life in prison. During his trial, his attorney, K. Ronald Bailey, refused to participate in Mick’s defense. An Ohio appeals court, citing ineffective counsel, overturned Mick’s conviction and ordered a new trial. Surprisingly, K. Ronald Bailey is still Mick’s attorney.
The trial for Castalia resident Richard Mick, 58, who previously served as the pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church, entered its first day of testimony Tuesday in Erie County common pleas court under Judge Tygh Tone. He faces 12 felony charges — two counts of rape and 10 counts of gross sexual imposition — for crimes allegedly committed against three children.
The first victim to testify, a woman, said that on separate occasions, Mick forced her to perform oral sex on him and raped her. All of the alleged crimes occurred in or near the church, at its former location on Milan Road.
She testified the sexual misconduct occurred between 1999 and 2002, when she was younger than 8 years old. She testified she felt Mick was an authority figure over her, and told a person, not related to her, about the alleged abuse years before police became involved, but nothing was done.
“I believe I went to (Mick’s) office to ask about salvation,” she testified, in regards to the alleged oral sex incident. “He, in a way, said that if I would do that I would be forgiven for my sins.”
The woman’s former therapist also testified, stating he diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Another victim, a man, testified that Mick inappropriately touched him when he was about 10 years old. The man testified Mick told him he was looking for rashes after he’d urinated himself.
The alleged sexual conduct involving the man occurred at the church’s current Cleveland Road location.
