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.
Robert and Cindy Litzinger, pastors at Church for Life in Santa Maria, California, have been sued by a church member who accuses them of sexual battery and assault.
A Santa Maria church and two of its former senior pastors are facing a sexual battery, harassment, assault, and gender violence civil lawsuit that was filed anonymously by a churchgoer in July 2017.
The plaintiff, listed as Jane Doe in court documents, alleges that Robert and Cindy Litzinger, who left Church For Life in 2016 because of other alleged complaints, used their positions as leaders and teachers to satisfy Robert’s “sexual fetishes.” The complaint also claims that Church For Life failed to adequately investigate complaints against Robert, who allegedly taught premarital and purity courses at the church, for years.
The plaintiff claims that while enrolled in Robert’s premarital counseling course, he told women to masturbate before their wedding nights, provided them with a list of sexual acts to do while married, and instructed them to do “whatever their husbands wanted.” Robert also allegedly asked the plaintiff and other women for “intimate” photos.
Robert sent the plaintiff unsolicited nude photos of himself, she claims in the court documents, and after several persistent requests, the plaintiff sent Robert similar photos in return, but she claims she eventually complained and asked him to stop. Still, the plaintiff claims Robert’s conduct continued.
While at the Litzingers’ house, the plaintiff alleges that Robert groped her breasts and genitals. When the plaintiff told his wife, according to the report, she said it must have been a mistake. When the plaintiff complained to Church For Life’s executive pastor, he allegedly instructed her to speak with Robert directly.
The complaint states that other claims against Robert led Church For Life to investigate and eventually remove him in 2016.
Paul Greco, defense attorney for the Litzingers, said his clients have completely denied the allegations listed in the complaint. Greco also said that because the lawsuit is a civil case, anything can be written in the complaint before a formal investigation takes place.
“Mr. Litzinger denies the allegations, and the discovery process will bring more information to light that will support his position,” Greco said.
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.
Frank Selas III, a Mormon and former children’s TV show host, was sentenced to five years in prison for sexually abusing children while on a camping trip.
The Star Tribune reports:
A man once known as “Mr. Wonder” to viewers of his children’s television show was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison, nearly four decades after he vanished amid allegations he sexually abused children on a camping trip.
Frank John Selas III, 78, pleaded guilty to one count of indecent behavior with a child before a judge in Alexandria sentenced him, Assistant District Attorney Brian Mosley said in a statement.
With credit for time served since his January 2016 arrest in California, Selas could be eligible for parole as soon as July, his attorney said.
Selas had faced the possibility of life in prison if convicted of two counts of aggravated rape, three counts of sexual battery and eight counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile. All of those charges related to one child who had been on the 1979 camping trip, according to defense attorney J. Michael Small.
Small said the plea deal was a “no-brainer” for Selas, given the potential consequences if he went to trial on Feb. 5.
Mosley said authorities consulted the victim before determining that a plea deal was in the “best interest” of the man and his family, due to the “sensitive nature of this case.” Resolving the case this way also spared them a grueling trial that would have been covered by “countless media outlets,” the prosecutor added.
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In the late 1970s, Selas hosted the “Mr. Wonder” show on KNOE-TV in north Louisiana. He allegedly fled to Brazil in 1979 after parents complained to authorities that he abused their children during a retreat in central Louisiana. By 1985, he had settled in the San Diego area, where he legally changed his name to Frank Szeles. Selas initially claimed that authorities had arrested the wrong person, but a San Diego judge ruled he was the fugitive who had been wanted in Louisiana since 1979.
Selas briefly worked as a news anchor at Monroe-based KNOE-TV, but it was his children’s show that turned him into a local celebrity. It started as a weekly program but went daily as its popularity grew. Often wearing a top hat and tuxedo coat, Selas presided over contests between teams of children bused to the station from local schools.
In San Diego, the man known to neighbors as Frank Szeles was a Cub Scouts leader who advertised swim lessons and other activities for young children from his suburban home in Bonita. Federal marshals found a Cub Scouts cap in his house when they arrested him
The Boy Scouts of America has said Selas was removed from his position several years before his arrest for failing to comply with the organization’s “youth protection policies and procedures,” after a parent made an unspecified complaint that didn’t relate to scouting. Selas also belonged to a Mormon congregation in San Diego, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said it removed him from “all positions related to children” for failing to comply with the church’s child protection policies.
A longtime Ontario youth pastor was arrested Sunday for alleged lewd acts with two minors.
According to police, Gerardo Custodio Jr., 30, of Upland, was accused by two women of sexual abuse when they were underage.
One woman told police she was 14 years old when the alleged abuse started. The incidents happened between 2012 and 2014 on the property of Iglesia La Familia De Dios, where Custodio Jr. worked as a minister, the victim told police. The victim said Custodio Jr. was 24 at the time.
The second victim said she was 15 when Custodio Jr. allegedly abused her from 2014 to 2015. Custodio Jr. was 26 years old at the time, according to police.
Police said Custodio Jr. had long been the youth pastor at the church where his father, Gerardo Custodio Sr., is the senior pastor.
Custodio Jr. is facing charges of engaging in lewd acts with a minor along with additional charges on which he is being held, according to police. Custodio Jr.’s bail has been set at $3 million.
Brandon Hixon, a former Idaho Republican state lawmaker, committed suicide this week. According to his ex-wife, Danielle Eirvin Hixon, Brandon was under investigation for sexually molesting two girls. Hixon was a Christian. According to Ballotpedia, Hixon described his religious views this way:
I have always been a voice in the fight against abortion. I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and I do not support gay marriage. I support the freedom of religion, and recognize that we have many different faiths and beliefs around the state and district, however, this country was founded on Christian principles and that should never be forgotten.
The former wife of an Idaho Republican state lawmaker who shot and killed himself this week says he was under investigation for molesting two girls, including a young female relative who was abused for more than 10 years. Brandon Hixon died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at his home, the Canyon County Coroner’s office told CBS affiliate KBOI.
Former colleagues at the Idaho Statehouse have offered kind words about Hixon, but his ex-wife Danielle Eirvin Hixon said the suicide robbed her family’s hopes of finding justice and closure though the legal system.
She told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that she told police about the abuse and that her husband raped and inappropriately touched one of the alleged female victims for about 11 years.
“Brandon made people believe that he was a stand-up, morally correct person,” said Hixon, who was married to the former lawmaker for 10 years until their divorce in 2016. “But behind the house walls, he would cheat on me and molested children.”
Scott Graf, spokesman for Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, said Wasden’s office had no comment on the investigation.
Hixon – a three-term Republican from Caldwell – had resigned from the state legislature in October after news emerged that he was the subject of a criminal investigation involving possible sexual abuse, though no details were made public.
His ex-wife said she had been told by investigators not to disclose details about the case until charges were filed against her ex-husband, but that the reason to keep the information confidential ended with his suicide. She said she and two other people had been scheduled to testify before a grand jury on Wednesday.
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“I had no idea it was happening,” Danielle Eirvin Hixon said of the alleged abuse, adding that the girl who told her “kept it quiet for so long.”
The second alleged victim was not related to the lawmaker, she said, adding that she learned about that girl from the girl’s mother.
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Records also show that the former lawmaker was previously the focus of a separate police investigation in 2014 after he was accused of inappropriate touching. He denied the accusations and told police he was worried they would harm his political career. It’s unknown if the new investigation, ongoing since Oct. 5, was connected to the earlier case.
Danielle Eirvin Hixon said comments by lawmakers praising her ex-husband’s character prompted her to speak up about the abuse allegations. She said she wanted people to know her side of the story.
“I say he was a coward by taking the easy way out,” she said of his suicide.
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.
Jesse Claybon, pastor of New Age Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, Missouri, faces four counts of child molestation.
The Belleville News-Democrat reports:
A St. Louis pastor was charged with child molestation of a girl under age 17.
Jesse Claybon, 47, of St. Louis, faces four counts of child molestation. According to the St. Louis County Police Department, he is accused of sexual contact with a girl under the age of 17 between Aug. 1, 2017, and Sept. 29, 2017.
The girl was known to Claybon, who is a reverend at the New Age Missionary Baptist Church, according to police.
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.
Camerius Mills, pastor of St. Paul Baptist Church in Abbeville, Alabama, was sentenced last Friday to twenty years in prison for having sex with a fifteen-year-old church member.
A repentant Alabama pastor who confessed to luring a 15-year-old member of his church into sexual acts with the promise of teaching her how to play the piano was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday.
Pastor Camerius Mills was the 29-year-old leader of St. Paul’s Baptist Church when he was arrested in 2015 and charged with rape, sodomy, and traveling to meet a child for the purpose of unlawful sex. He had served in the position for about three years.
“He was a pastor and he had befriended this young lady in his congregation,” Sheriff’s Investigator Keith Cauthen, who arrested Mills, told the Dothan Eagle in the summer of 2016. “He picked her up under the pretenses on teaching her the piano.”
Cauthen said Mills first met the teenager when she started attending his church in November 2014. It wasn’t until February 2015 that Mills initiated unlawful contact.
“He knew better, he was a pastor. He befriended her and he took advantage of her,” Cauthen added. “With the Henry County Sheriff’s Office our goal is to protect the citizens, and we’re going to make sure he does not prey on anyone else again.”
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Mills, who is a married father with two young children, admitted to having sex with the teenager and even showed remorse, officials said.
“I just want to say that I apologize and I hope God can forgive me,” Mills had publicly confessed after his arraignment.
Investigators say at least one instance of the unlawful sex between the pastor and the minor occurred at The Hardridge Creek Campground in Henry County. Federal investigators were brought in to investigate the case because the campground is government property.
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.
Andrea Baber, a teacher at Logos Christian Academy in Springfield,Oregon, was arrested and charged with “third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, unlawful delivery of marijuana to a minor, online sexual corruption of a child and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.”
An Oregon teacher has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a student.
Lt. Chris Merrifield of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said Monday that 29-year-old Andrea Baber was arrested after investigators obtained a warrant to search her Cottage Grove home.
Baber taught at Logos Christian Academy in Springfield.
Merrifield says the relationship began in 2016, when the male student was 15 years old. Merrifield says the relationship continued on a regular basis, with Baber also providing the boy with marijuana.
Baber is charged with third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, unlawful delivery of marijuana to a minor, online sexual corruption of a child and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.
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The sheriff’s office identified Baber as a former teacher, but she remains on the school’s online staff directory. The website says Baber teaches writing and literature, and is married.
“Andrea has always felt called to work with youth and is very excited that God opened the door for her to be part of the Logos team,” her biography says, according to KPIC.
The Register-Guard adds:
The victim’s father reported the sexual relationship Dec. 12 after he and his wife received an anonymous email asking if they knew about their 17-year-old son and Baber, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Douglas County Circuit Court on Monday.
Attached to the email were several photographs of Baber and the boy, together in Baber’s bed, according to the affidavit.
Authorities interviewed the teen, who told deputies that he and Baber had been in a relationship since 2016, when the boy was 15.
According to the affidavit, the boy told deputies that their relationship started with flirting at school, kissing at the movies and eventually progressed to sexual acts. He estimated having sex with his teacher once or twice a week at her residence on Territorial Highway, the affidavit states. He also told deputies that Baber occasionally gave him marijuana and alcohol.
During the investigation, authorities discovered that Baber’s husband recently made a report with Child Protective Services after he caught his wife and the teen in the Baber home, partially unclothed, according to the affidavit.
Baber’s husband told CPS that he also found topless photos of his wife that had been sent to the teen via text message, the affidavit states.
Cardinal Bernard Law died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-six. At the very moment Law breathed his last breath, I believe I heard countless Catholic sex abuse victims and their relatives say, with one voice, good riddance. May you rot in hell. Alas, as this story will show, Law not only escaped hell, it is likely he escaped purgatory too.
Law was Archbishop emeritus of Boston and an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. Law is best known for having extensive knowledge of sex abuse perpetrated by priests and doing nothing about it. Worse yet, Law often moved sexual predators to new parishes where they continued to rape and assault children in the name of God. According to Wikipedia:
One priest alone was alleged to have raped or molested 130 children over decades, while Law and other local officials moved him among churches rather than going to the authorities.
Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston in 2002, only to be appointed two years later by pedophile-sympathetic Pope John Paul II to a cushy position as Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
At no time did Law admit that his behavior was sinful or criminal. In a statement made after his resignation, Law asked for prayer and forgiveness, acknowledging that he had shortcomings and made mistakes. Shortcomings and mistakes? How about owning destroying the lives of hundreds and hundreds of Catholic children and their families? How about telling the Pope you that can no longer in good conscience be a priest, and that you intend to spend the remaining days of your life atoning for your support of men who raped and molested their way through numerous Catholic parishes?
Pope Francis is generally considered a great guy, a man who understands the people and sincerely desires to help the poor and afflicted. Pope Francis damaged his good-guy reputation this week by allowing Law to have a funeral befitting a Cardinal in St. Peter’s Basilica. Nothing was said about Law’s abhorrent behavior and his complicity in decades of criminal sexual abuse. Instead, Law’s many “good” deeds were memorialized, reminding anyone who was paying attention that Pope Francis and the Catholic Church still don’t get it when it comes to sexual abuse. Even the choice of Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano to conduct Law’s funeral Mass reeks of stupefying indifference towards victims of sexual abuse. Sodano, according to John Allen, Jr, writing for The Crux:
Sodano . . . has a checkered history when it comes to the Church’s abuse scandals. Among other things, Sodano was a principal patron of the late Mexican Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ, whose own pattern of sexual abuse and misconduct was eventually acknowledged by his own order after a Vatican finding of guilt.
Emma Green of The Atlantic says it best when she writes:
Even in death, he [Law] was given a ceremonious exit: a funeral mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, attended by a coterie of cardinals and complete with a blessing from Pope Francis. The Church has taken steps to move past its legacy of clergy sex abuse over the last decade, but it still betrays moments of ambivalence like this, caught between the moral imperative to eliminate abuse and its reticence about sacrificing decorum or showing disloyalty to powerful clerics.
Moments of ambivalence indeed — a poignant reminder that Pope Francis and the Church still, to this day, do not understand how the massive Catholic sex abuse scandal is viewed by the public, nor, it seems, do they understand how memorializing a pedophile enabler such as Law rips open the psychological scars of countless sex abuse victims.
Here’s what Pope Francis should have done. Standing before the world, the Pope should have, one last time, exposed Law’s behavior, asking his victims to forgive the Church for its crass indifference towards their plight; and, in a gesture of contrition, ordered Law’s body to be buried among the heathen. In doing so, Pope Francis would be saying to pedophile priests and their enablers that sexual abuse is a mortal sin worthy of banishment on this side of the grave and hell on the other.
Jesus said in Mathew 18:5,6:
And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Instead of a millstone around his neck, Law received the praise and blessings of the Pope and his fellow Cardinals. In giving Law such magnanimous send-off, these “godly” men, once again, showed that when it comes to sexual abuse they simply don’t get it.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven 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.
A group of Catholic sex abuse victims and their survivors are suing the bankrupt Diocese of Great Falls-Billings in Montana for $70 million.
Representatives of sex abuse victims and their survivors are suing a bankrupt Roman Catholic diocese in Montana in an effort to ensure more than $70 million in assets are available for those abused by church officials.
The Diocese of Great Falls-Billings entered bankruptcy protection in March as part of settlements involving more than 400 people in sex abuse lawsuits. Church officials said at the time the diocese and its insurers would contribute to a fund to compensate victims and set aside additional money for those who had yet to come forward.
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A committee of unsecured creditors representing eight sex abuse survivors sued the diocese in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week, aiming to reach a negotiated settlement. California attorney James Stang, who represents the committee, said the complaint was “part of the process,” the Billings Gazette reported.
U.S. Catholic leaders have been grappling with a clergy sexual abuse crisis that exploded in 2002 following reporting by The Boston Globe. Nationwide, the church has paid several billion dollars in settlements since 1950. More than 6,500 clergy members have been accused of abuse and hundreds have been removed from church work.
In the Montana bankruptcy case, the church says the disputed assets are held in trust for its parishes and therefore unavailable for creditors. The creditors argue the property is part of the church’s estate and should be available for victims.
Stang has represented unsecured creditors in 11 other Catholic church bankruptcies since 2004, including the Diocese of Helena’s bankruptcy. He said every case has resulted in a negotiated resolution.
Bishop Michael Warfel said in a statement that the creditors’ lawsuit was an “unfortunate and unnecessary distraction” to the church’s efforts to resolve victims’ claims.
Two sexual abuse lawsuits were filed against the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, including one in which a woman in her 60s said she was molested and raped by the Rev. Emmett Hoffman while she was a student at the St. Labre Parish and School between 1955 and 1962. Hoffman died in 2013.
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The Diocese of Helena filed for bankruptcy in early 2014 to settle about 360 claims of abuse and sexual abuse by priests, nuns and lay workers who served in the diocese.
That settlement, negotiated before the bankruptcy filing, created a $21 million fund for victims named in the lawsuit and any others that might come forward.
The Diocese of Great Falls-Billings has a comprehensive Child Protection Policy. I found it to be interesting reading. One can only hope that this policy is strictly enforced.
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.
Wesley Lamb, youth pastor at Belton Assembly of God Ministries in Belton, Missouri, stands accused of having sex with a 14-year-old church girl.
A former youth pastor at the Belton Assembly of God Ministries is accused of two counts of statutory rape.
According to court documents, the 28-year-old former church worker, Wesley Ian Lamb, is accused of having sex with a 14-year-old girl who attended the church twice in early September.
The first alleged assault is said to have happened on Sept. 1 in a minivan. The victim told detectives she was too scared to tell anyone.
The youth pastor allegedly said it would not happen again. He had been tutoring the teen at his home on Fridays, according to both parties.
he victim told police it happened again, about a week later.
She said Lamb guided her upstairs, took off her clothes and she went into shock before he had sex with her.
The victim said Lamb’s wife walked upstairs and started yelling at her husband.
However, when police interviewed the wife, she said she did not see them having sex.
