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.
Roy Andrews, a former youth pastor at Iglesia La Fuente in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was recently sentenced to 4-12 months in prison for sexually molesting a child.
A Cumberland County man accused of sexually molesting a 9-year-old girl in a McDonalds will spend less than a year in prison, per a sentence handed down Tuesday afternoon.
A judge sentenced Roy Andrews, 77, to four months to a year in prison for touching a 9-year-old girl’s genitals in April 2024 while they sat in a McDonalds in Upper Allen Township.
Andrews also touched himself and had the girl touch him for more than a minute, according to police.
Andrews helped found a Hispanic church in Harrisburg called “Iglesia La Fuente” where he was a youth group leader from 2014 to 2022. After the church closed, Andrews began transporting Harrisburg children to a church in Mechanicsburg.
On the day he was seen molesting the girl in the restaurant, Andrews said he took the children to church, got them food and took them shopping, then back to his house where they “just kind of hung out” and “played,” according to police. He denied inappropriately touching the girl.
Two weeks later, when police showed up to arrest him, Andrews tried to run away into his home but police tackled him in his kitchen, they wrote in court documents. Police later found a suicide note and a gun near where Andrews had tried to run.
Surveillance footage of the interaction inside the McDonald’s showed Andrews letting the girl’s brothers run around the parking lot while he sat in a booth in the corner of the restaurant, holding the girl on his lap.
Police originally charged Andrews with several counts related to indecent assault of a child, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children and resisting arrest.
Andrews pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors: resisting arrest and indecent assault of a child. After his jail time, he will spend a year on probation and have to register as a sex offender and accept treatment.
Seibert allowed Andrews to report to Cumberland County Prison Thursday instead of being arrested during his sentencing hearing to allow him to get his affairs in order.
Corey Fahnestock, Andrews’ attorney, said the incident was “out of character” for Andrews, and Andrews told Seibert he was remorseful.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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