A teacher at a Christian day school has been charged with 84 separate counts of sexual abuse after allegedly sexually exploiting numerous students, according to a statement Wednesday from the school.
Curtis Van Dam, a 36-year-old fifth-grade teacher in Iowa, sexually abused an unknown number of his students from August 2013 until last month, when he was finally discovered, according to the statement. Some of the crimes allegedly even took place within the Sioux Center Christian School, where Van Dam worked.
“We have been told from the beginning that additional charges for a former teacher at Sioux Center Christian would be coming. Today, Mr. Curt Van Dam, was charged with 101 felonies and 39 misdemeanors,” said the statement by Josh Bowar, a representative of the school.
Bowar then thanked God for shining a light on this horrific situation.
[WHAT A LOAD OF GRADE A BULLSHIT] “Kids, we want you to know that we consider you brave for telling your parents, the police, and the interviewers what happened to you. We praise God that your testimony has brought to light a dark secret that none of us adults knew was there. Please know that thousands are lifting you before the throne of your Father in heaven…. Trust Him to restore you completely,” Bowar wrote. “Our focus at Sioux Center Christian continues to be the Christ-centered education of our students, while also providing daily support and guidance to students as needed through their teachers and professional counselors.”
Cheryl Haan, an administrative assistant at the school, told Newsweek Friday that the exact number of students affected is unknown, but that the number continues to change as more students come forward with their stories.
The school is also offering students and their parents special therapy sessions with a Christian pastor.
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Teachers at the school in Iowa said they hope the recent accusations against their teacher will bring the community closer to God.
“In the midst of this hurt, we proclaim hope. Hope in our sovereign God, who is so very trustworthy and true in His promises of life and healing,” said the statement. “He gave His only Son, who lived as one of us, died on the cross, rose again, and reigns on high, so that we could enjoy eternal life in Christ’s unfolding Kingdom.”
The Archdiocese of St. Louis has received an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against Father Dennis B. Zacheis. The acts are alleged to have occurred while he was an associate pastor at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Parish in Mehlville from 1975 to 1979. Father Zacheis denies the allegation.
Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, in consultation with the Review Board of the archdiocese, made the allegation known for the sake of openness and transparency.
Father Zacheis retired from ministry without priestly faculties in 2010 due to alleged irregularities in finances for which he was responsible as pastor of St. Anthony in Sullivan. He currently resides in a private residence.
Father Zacheis served as associate pastor at St. Mary Magdalen Parish in south St. Louis from 1979-85, Christ, Prince of Peace in Manchester from 1985-88 and St. Matthias in Lemay from 1988-92. He was pastor of St. Gertrude Parish in Krakow from 1994-2003, St. Alban Roe in Wildwood from 2003-04 and St. Anthony in Sullivan from 2005-09.
As pastor of the parish in Sullivan, Father Zacheis also was known for a large number of new Catholics joining the faith in a town that is largely non-Catholic.
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In 2010, Tim Townsend, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, wrote:
A lawyer for a Catholic priest said Friday that his client bears no responsibility for a $60,000 shortfall at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church that has divided the Sullivan parish and triggered a reimbursement from the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
John Kilo, a lawyer who represents the Rev. Dennis Zacheis, said the priest “denies any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
A prosecutor, meanwhile, said his decision not to bring criminal charges against the priest follows seven months of investigation in which the archdiocese cooperated fully.
“If I’d had enough evidence to file criminal charges, (the archdiocese) would have been 100 percent on board,” Franklin County prosecutor Robert Parks said. “As far as I am concerned, the investigation is closed.”
That’s not good enough for some parishioners who feel the $60,000 is only a portion of what the church of 300 families lost during Zacheis’ tenure between 2005 and April 2009, when the archdiocese removed him “for reasons of health.”
Those same parishioners question why their former priest had the church pay for a variety of expenses incurred at Lake of the Ozarks, where he owned a waterfront home.
Financial irregularities at the parish led St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson to take the extraordinary step of visiting the parish personally Wednesday to announce that $60,000 would be restored to St. Anthony’s through the archdiocese’s insurance fund and to pray for healing.
Parishioner Tammy Emily said at the meeting, “There were several people up there saying that this money was unaccounted for. No one would say it had been taken.”
Carlson did say that a routine audit of parish finances in 2009 turned up an off-the-books bank account that included $300,000 in disbursements. Nearly $240,000 of the money “came back to help the parish in a variety of ways,” Carlson told parishioners.
Nonparishioners were asked to leave the meeting before parishioners began asking questions, but those who were there said someone asked how the rest of the $240,000 from the off-the-books account came back to benefit the parish.
According to those parishioners, Carlson detailed some of the expenditures, saying $100,000 was used to renovate the parish rectory (a priest’s residence) and another $90,000 was used for updates to the church. The archdiocese’s internal auditor, Mike Duffy, later told the Post-Dispatch that about $100,000 was for rectory improvements, and $70,000 was for heating and cooling for the church.
Walter Korte, a former St. Anthony’s parishioner and friend of Zacheis’, said he was “totally disappointed” in the meeting because of the “personal attacks” on the priest by angry parishioners.
“I went there for a healing service, and I felt like I’d walked into a crucifixion,” Korte said. “Some of us are grateful he’s in our lives. I had no idea what that meeting would turn into.”
Kilo said Zacheis “has many supporters and he’s done a lot of good for the parish. He engaged in capital improvements and helped the parish out financially.”
The archdiocese said Zacheis’ primary residence since leaving St. Anthony’s is Regina Cleri, a home for retired priests on its Shrewsbury campus. Recently, he has been living at Rochester Treatment Center for Clergy and Male Religious in Minnesota. A woman who answered the telephone at the treatment facility Thursday said Zacheis had checked out that morning, and did not know whether he would be returning.
Former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke assigned Zacheis, 63, to St. Anthony’s in 2005 after a stormy 17-month assignment at St. Alban Roe in Wildwood that ended in the priest’s resignation.
The first two years of Zacheis’ tenure at St. Anthony’s were excluded from any criminal investigation because a three-year statute of limitations on theft meant police could investigate only back to early 2007, Parks said.
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Members of the parish also raised questions about church petty cash and a credit card used to pay expenses at Lake of the Ozarks.
“Parishioners have no proof of where their money is going, but I can pretty much guarantee no one donated money for (Zacheis) to go have a good time at the lake,” Emily said.
The archdiocese’s audit details disbursements from a petty-cash checking account and a building-fund checking account, some of which went to payments for Zacheis’ waterfront home at the Lake of the Ozarks, including personal property taxes on his 26-foot PlayCraft tritoon boat.
Other items from the audit include church credit card payments to a variety of retailers and services in Lake Ozark and Osage Beach, Mo., including at the Horny Toad Bar & Grill at the Camden on the Lake resort, just across Workmen Hollow Cove from the priest’s Horseshoe Bend lake house.
The audit lists credit card expenditures from Lake of the Ozarks retailers such as Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Hy-Vee Foods and Sam’s Club; restaurants from McDonald’s to high-end lake spots like the Blue Heron and Bentley’s; and numerous clothing stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and American Eagle Outfitter.
It also lists hundreds of dollars in credit card and bank late fees, overdraft fees and finance charges.
Carlson told St. Anthony’s parishioners Wednesday that the archdiocese had notified civil authorities of financial discrepancies in two other cases recently, neither of which involved Zacheis.
The first involved about $40,000 missing at the Cathedral Basilica. The second involved “improper documentation” of expenditures by an outside vendor working on three construction projects for three different parishes and $95,000 missing, according to Duffy.
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.
Jordan Baird, director of music and youth pastor (the church disputes the charge that Baird was its youth pastor) at The Life Church in Manassas, Virginia will soon stand trial on charges of “indecent liberties with a child by a custodian” and “sexual offense with a minor by computer.”
A new jury trial date has been set for Jordan Baird, the Warrenton-based pop star and son of Manassas megachurch leaders accused of having an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl in his congregation.
Baird, 27, is facing seven counts of indecent liberties with a child by a custodian and was recently indicted for one count of sexual offense with a minor by computer. The former model was scheduled for trial Sept. 6, but the trial was postponed after someone came forward the night before it was to begin with a recording of the victim reportedly making her first allegation against Baird at a prayer circle, according to court records.
Both the prosecution and the defense agreed they needed time to process the new evidence.
Baird is now schedule to face a jury trial Jan. 8 through Jan. 10 in Prince William County Circuit Court.
All of the charges Baird face relate to one victim who attended The Life Church. The new indictment is based on the same set of facts, but a new legal theory, according to attorneys in the case.
Prosecutors will likely try to introduce testimony from other women who say Baird used his position of power in the church to make sexual advances toward them, according to a motion filed by Fredericksburg Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Kevin Gross, who has been appointed special prosecutor in the case. The motion does not stipulate if the women were underage at the time of the alleged encounters.
Baird is accused of touching the victim and asking her to touch his genitals, among other allegations, according to a criminal complaint filed in circuit court
Baird has maintained he is innocent since the allegations went public, according to his attorneys.
Prosecutors say Baird was a youth pastor at The Life Church in Manassas and was in a supervisory role over the girl during several alleged acts of sexual abuse between January and September 2015.
However, his attorneys say Baird was the church’s director of music and was never employed as a youth pastor.
A second teenage victim has claimed a 25-year-old church employee had inappropriate sexual contact, exposed himself and made inappropriate statements inside a popular Manassas church.
Jordan Baird, of Warrenton was charged Tuesday with one count of indecent liberties by a custodian, in addition to two previous counts of the same charge, after incidents at the Life Church, located on Balls Ford Road in Manassas.
A 17-year-old victim came forward, after media reports of Jordan Baird’s arrest for inappropriately touching a 16-year-old female on more than one occasion between January and September of 2015, according to Prince William County police.
Jordan Baird is the middle son of the church’s senior pastor, David Baird.
“Jordan is the worship director of the church — he oversees the music for all of our services,” his father told WTOP.
The father disagreed with the notion that Jordan Baird is a youth pastor.
“The charge said he was a youth pastor, and that’s what’s been reported by the media,” said David Baird. “We’ve not been able to tell our side of that — Jordan has never been a pastor in our church.”
The senior Baird said the charge facing his son is not appropriate, given his son’s employment in the church.
“He’s not ordained as a pastor,” said David. “He’s an employee of the church, but he’s not a pastor, and he’s not the youth pastor of the church.
“That’s very important because the charge said he was in a custodial oversight of these students,” David said. “He was not in a custodial position over these students.”
David said he first heard of the police investigation into his son in July when Prince William County detectives came to the church asking if he had heard allegations that Jordan had been sending inappropriate text messages.
“The church was made aware by the parents of the first victim that there was improper texting by Jordan to the 16-year-old in 2014,” said David. “Immediately the church put Jordan on a leave of absence, pending its own internal inquiry.”
David said he recused himself from the church’s inquiry into his son’s activities.
“The outcome of the internal inquiry was that no criminal activity had occurred, but we have kept Jordan on a leave of absence, pending the outcome of the legal investigation,” said David, referring to the criminal charges against his son.
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According to a January 12, 2018 news report, Baird was found guilty and awaits sentencing. InsideNoVa reports:
The Prince William County Circuit Court jury found 26-year-old Jordan David Baird guilty on five counts of indecent liberties with a minor by a custodian, delivering the verdict Jan. 11 after two days of deliberations. The jury declined to convict Baird on two other counts of the same crime, in addition to a charge of electronic solicitation of a minor.
Prosecutors described Baird as a “deceiver, a manipulator and a sexual predator” over the course of a three-day trial, accusing him of repeatedly groping and propositioning a 16-year-old girl who worshipped with him at the Life Church in Manassas. Baird’s father, David, is the lead pastor of the large church, while Jordan Baird helped coordinate music services and mentor young people.
Fredericksburg Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Kevin Gross, who was tabbed as a special prosecutor in the case, told the jury that Baird “exploited” his relationship with the girl to abuse her, and “thought he could get away with it” because he was the son of a powerful church leader.
The teen, who is now 19, testified that Baird repeatedly groped her at the church over the course of 2015, including two incidents where he rubbed his genitals against her body. She also detailed his history of propositioning her for sex through messages in a trivia app.
InsideNoVa is not identifying the girl because she is a victim of sexual assault.
Baird’s attorney, Todd Sanders, argued that those messages “did cross an emotional line,” but didn’t amount to a crime. He also suggested to the jury that the girl’s story was unreliable, as she initially told church leaders that Baird touched her leg, and only later provided more graphic details to police.
In particular, Sanders argued that the girl’s family likely pressured her into embellishing her story, considering the rift that these accusations prompted with the Baird family. He also claimed there was “absolutely no corroboration” for the teen’s claims.
But Gross pushed back forcefully against Sanders’ claims in his closing argument, noting that the girl had “everything to lose” by accusing Baird of misconduct. He noted that she had attended the church since she was 7, and considered the Bairds a “second family.”
“She knew the defendant for years; this was not some random guy groping her,” Gross said. “This is where she grew up. She spent the formative years of her life at the church. You can understand why she didn’t want to come forward immediately.”
Gross also pointed to Baird’s long history of sexually suggestive messages to the teen as evidence of his intent. He convinced the girl to download the “Trivia Crack” app, then used it to frequently ask her if he could be her “first kiss” or “first time,” urging her to meet him in a hotel room so as to avoid suspicion from his wife.
A former youth leader of a Manassas megachurch who was convicted of having a sexual relationship with an underage girl in his congregation was sentenced to spend eight months in jail today.
Prosecutors allege Jordan Baird, 26, of Warrenton, used his position as the son of the leader of the Life Church and as a Christian pop singer to manipulate young girls and women into having inappropriate relationships with him. Baird was found guilty of five counts of indecent liberties with a minor by a custodian, all of which were related to one victim, after a four-day jury trial in Prince William County Circuit Court. Jurors recommended Baird serve five months in jail for those convictions.
The jury couldn’t reach a verdict on one charge—using electronic means to commit a sex crime with a minor. As part of a plea deal, the charge was amended to electronic solicitation of a minor and Baird pleaded no contest to it today.
“You kept me silent for a year-and-a-half and I want you to know you no longer have control over me,” the victim said during Baird’s sentencing hearing. “This is not your story. This is my story and I will use it to help other victims. You picked the wrong girl to mess with. Thank you for empowering me to stand up and fight for what is worth fighting for.”
Prosecutors said Baird is a “deceiver, a manipulator and a sexual predator” who groomed the girl for abuse, sent her sexually-suggestive messages and groped her multiple times at the Life Church between January and September 2015. The teen testified during the trial she refused Baird’s unwanted sexual advances and told him what he was doing was wrong on more than one occasion.
Judge Burke F. McCahill sentenced Baird to five years in jail, with all but three months suspended for the solicitation charge and five months for all of the indecent liberties charges. McCahill said the law did not allow him to impose a higher sentence than the one the jury recommended, even though the state sentencing guidelines were between one and five years in prison for each indecent liberties charge.
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During the trial, Special Prosecutor David Gross tried to introduce the testimonies of three other women who say Baird used his power in the church and his notoriety as a Christian pop singer to manipulate them into having inappropriate relationships and performing sex acts in the church. One of the girls was underage at the time of the alleged misconduct, the prosecutor said. But the judge wouldn’t allow the women’s testimonies because he said the information would be highly prejudicial in the criminal trial, citing case law.
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According to testimony presented at trial, the girl’s family initially asked the church to bring in a third-party to investigate what took place. But the church selected Steve Dawson, a close friend of the Bairds’ who was once a co-pastor at the church who does not have a background in law enforcement or investigations.
Gross suggested Dawson left out key details he learned during his internal investigation when he was interviewed by police and refused to hand his notes over to law-enforcement officials. Gross also suggested the Life Church’s law firm instructed Dawson through his investigation.
The teen’s father said he recorded a meeting with Dawson in which he told the pastor Baird touched his daughter. On the stand, Dawson said he didn’t “recall” the father saying this.
The girl and her family said they have been “shunned” by the church since they came forward. They said the teen’s childhood friends were “stolen” from her and she was mocked and ridiculed by people she once considered family.
“Many people have abandoned them to align with you,” said McCahill as he handed down his sentence. “They were victimized a second time by this.”
This story is about two criminals — a school janitor convicted of statutory sodomy and his pastor who said the man was a Christian with good character. The child molester will serve time in prison, but his partner in crime, his pastor, will continue to serve up religious bullshit without facing any consequences. The man’s pastor is a criminal in the sense that he sells forgiveness from God as a way to reboot your life, no matter what you have done. I have no doubt that this pastor thinks that since Jesus has forgiven the child molester, so should everyone else. Slap him on the wrists, judge. Jesus has forgiven him and he promises to never, never sexually molest children again.
Karl Lawrence, a former school janitor, was convicted last week of two counts of statutory sodomy.
A Greene County jury convicted a former janitor at Willard Public Schools of two counts of statutory sodomy last week.
Karl David Lawrence, 51, sexually abused a girl twice in 2012.
During Lawrence’s sentencing hearing, prosecutors said Lawrence abused multiple children over several years.
None of the abuse had any apparent connection to Willard Public Schools, where a district spokeswoman said Lawrence worked from 2006 to 2014.
Lawrence was charged in 2016, four years after the abuse of the girl took place.
According to a probable cause statement filed by Republic police, three girls accused Lawrence of sexually abusing them in Republic and in Florida.
The statement said one girl disclosed that when she was 12 or 13, she was in a garage in Republic when Lawrence came up behind her, put his hand down her pants and touched her genitals.
According to the statement, the girl said Lawrence “stuck his fingers inside me” a different time and she told him to stop.
Lawrence allegedly replied: “Why?”
The girl said Lawrence grabbed her breasts often, according to the statement.
Family of both the victim and Lawrence attended the sentencing hearing Thursday, filling three pews in the courtroom.
Dawn Diel, an assistant Greene County prosecuting attorney, said Lawrence has “fooled his family for all these years.”
The first person to testify at the sentencing was the victim, who prosecutors say is now 18.
“I am scared all the time,” the victim said, her voice breaking. “I have been diagnosed with severe anxiety. I get panic attacks. My mom has tried to help me though it.”
She said she has been put on medication for anxiety.
“When I see headlights behind me, I think they’re following me,” the victim said. “I feel like I’m always going to be scared because of what happened to me.”
Several people took the stand on behalf of Lawrence.
His mother called him “one of the most caring, loving people in the world.”
His wife, who broke down crying multiple times, said they got married in 2013, a year before the allegations surfaced.
“He’s a wonderful husband. He’s a wonderful father,” Lawrence’s wife said. “He provides for us. He takes care of us.”
She started crying.
Lawrence’s pastor testified that Lawrence and his wife are faithful attendants of church and Bible study. The pastor described Lawrence as a “man of good character.”
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“The fact that even his own family and people around him … think he has good character shows his true danger because he has that ability to manipulate and he was able to create such devastation in plain sight,” Chapman said. “Every day that he’s out, children are going to be at risk.”
The jury recommended a sentence of 15 years on both counts of statutory sodomy.
A Bolingbrook man who sexually assaulted a girl repeatedly from 2002 through 2004 was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday.
Fred Mack Jr., 65, was a family friend and pastor who assaulted the girl, now in her 20s, on multiple occasions between September 2002 and July 2004, Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow said. The crimes occurred when the girl was around the age of 12.
She reported the assault to Bolingbrook police in 2016, while working in a dance production that dealt with sexual abuse.
“This woman showed remarkable courage coming forward years after she was assaulted by this predator,” Glasgow said in a prepared statement.
The victim testified that Mack molested her on as many as 100 occasions when the two were alone. Mack told investigators that he’d molested the girl on fewer than 25 occasions.
A jury on Aug. 23 convicted Mack of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child. On Monday, Judge Carla Alessio Policandriotes imposed the sentence.
I have posted several previous stories about the ongoing sexual abuse scandal at Rushville Baptist Temple in Rushvillle, Indiana. You can read those stories here and here. Last Thursday, the Rush County prosecutor filed additional charges against Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor Garry Evans, alleging that he molested a six-year old.
The Rushville Republican reports:
The Rush County Prosecutor’s Office filed more charges Thursday against Garry Evans, the Pastor of the Rushville Baptist Temple Church. The new charges stem from allegations from a new alleged victim, identified in Court filings as a six-year-old. The new charges include Child Molesting, a Level 4 Felony, and Child Solicitation, a Level 5 Felony.
Evans previously was charged with Child Molesting, Child Solicitation, and Sexual Battery involving five alleged victims. Evans posted the $20,000 bond soon after it was set by the Judge. Along with the new charges, the Prosecutor filed a motion to increase Evans’ original bond. Rush County Prosecutor Phil Caviness explained that the fact that these charges bring the number of alleged victims to six justifies a higher bond than the standard Level 4 Felony case, and added that his office was seeking Evans to be monitored by the Rush County Community Corrections Program if he is released on bond. “We feel that given the charges, GPS monitoring and protective orders for all of the alleged victims and their families are important conditions of bond in this case,” Caviness said.
Court documents indicate that these new alleged incidents occurred sometime between the Fall of 2016 and Summer, 2017, but were disclosed after the first charges were filed against Evans. Trial for these charges currently is scheduled to begin on Feb. 20, 2018.
After these latest charges were filed, Evans attempted to commit suicide.
ABC-6 reports:
Because of the new charges, Evans was ordered to be placed on GPS monitoring as a condition of his bond and he surrendered himself to community corrections that evening.
Emergency crews were called to Evan’s home on 5th Street around 5:30 p.m. Friday for a report of an attempted suicide. When they arrived they found Evans unresponsive inside the home. He was resuscitated at the scene and rushed to Rush Memorial Hospital before being airlifted to IU Methodist Hospital.
His condition is unknown at this time.
Evans next court date on the previous charges was scheduled for November 28.
An Indiana pastor appears to still be the leader of his church despite the child molestation and solicitation charges he faces and his attempt to take his own life after additional charges came down on Friday.
Garry Evans is listed as pastor on the sign in front of Rushville Baptist Temple Church, and now people living doors away want to know why no one from the church is speaking out.
“It’s wrong. Pure evil. There’s evil in that church,” said Tim Guck, who lives next door.
The man the church says leads their worship has led the Rushville Police Department down a frightening path of child molestation allegations.
In October, 14 counts were filed against him, and another two filed on Friday when authorities say a 6-year-old came forward with child molesation claims. But neighbors of the church building said Evans continued to preach after the charges in October, when he got out on bail.
“The church is saying they back him, and they don’t believe children,” said Carrie Simmeron, who lives down the block.
After Friday’s charges, Evans tried to take his own life at his Rushville home. He had to be flown to IU Health Methodist Hospital.
24-Hour News 8 reached out to the hospital multiple times for information on Evans’ condition but did not hear back on Friday or Saturday.
“I don’t understand it. I don’t get the whole ordeal. I don’t know what’s going on,” said Guck.
Police said there are six victims between the ages of 3 and 7, and that the abuse happened within the last few years inside his churches’ walls.
These allegations stopped the Simmermon family from trying out the church a few doors down from their home.
“Especially since I have little ones,” said Carrie Simmermon. “I wouldn’t want to take that chance.”
Police couldn’t charge Evans in connection with other victims who claimed abuse from 30 years ago.
“That’s why I say it needs to be shut down as a common nuisance, because I believe they’re all in on it. I mean why would they have his name up there?” said Guck.
Police arrested a pastor Tuesday after a member of his McAllen church accused him of sexually assaulting a teenager for more than two years.
Elliot James Wickboldt of McAllen is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl from July 2015 to Oct. 12, 2017, according to a criminal complaint.
On multiple occasions, Wickboldt sexually assaulted Jane– a pseudonym assigned to the teen in the criminal complaint–at an Edinburg home and at Awaken Church, according to the criminal complaint.
On Oct. 24 during an interview at the Children’s Advocacy Center, Jane said “Wickboldt would tell her not to tell anyone or he would go to jail,” according to the criminal complaint.
Awaken Church Lead Pastor Bentley Sargeant issued the following statement to CBS 4 News:
“Elliot Wickboldt was removed as pastor of Awaken Church due to a moral failure. He was not the pastor at the time of his arrest. Please direct additional questions regarding the alleged crime to the local authorities.”
McAllen police met with an Awaken Church “overseer” on Monday, who said Wickboldt “had admitted to kissing, holding hands and touching Jane’s privates and vice versa,” according to the criminal complaint.
After obtaining several statements, police issued an arrest warrant for Wickboldt on Tuesday, according to the criminal complaint.
Wickboldt was charged with sexual assault, a second-degree felony; and indecency with a child with sexual contact, a third-degree felony.
A former McAllen pastor has been charged with indecency with a child—again.
Elliot James Wickboldt was charged with indecency with a child with sexual contact, a second-degree felony, on Nov. 1.
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The incidents allegedly occurred in both McAllen and Edinburg, and were reported to both police departments.
Wickboldt’s third charge is in connection to the alleged sexual assault of Jane Doe at the Edinburg home, according to a criminal complaint from the Edinburg Municipal Court.
According to the criminal complaint, Wickboldt assaulted Jane Doe “during game/movie nights” at an Edinburg home. The criminal complaint doesn’t specify dates.
Louis Brouillard, 96, spent a lifetime sexually molesting church children. Told by Catholic church officials to ” try to do better and say prayers as a penance,” Brouillard now faces eighty-seven lawsuits over lifelong predatory behavior.
Haidee V Eugenio, a reporter for the Pacific Daily News, writes:
A priest accused of sexual abuse was sent from Guam to Minnesota for “help with his personal problems” in 1981, and later barred from serving as a priest after questions arose about a house guest from the island, according to a statement from the Diocese of Duluth.
Louis Brouillard, 96, is accused of sexually abusing minors in 87 lawsuits filed since the beginning of the year. He served as a pastor, teacher and Boy Scout leader on Guam, and he has admitted to molesting 20 or more boys here.
In three recent lawsuits, he is accused of paying to bring boys from Guam to Minnesota, where he continued to abuse them. One of the lawsuits alleges he moved a boy into a two-bedroom retirement home apartment where he lived with his elderly parents.
Brouillard would have been about 60 at the time.
“Father Bouillard was sent to the Diocese of Duluth in 1981 in the hope that he would receive help with personal problems,” said Kyle Eller, communications director for the Diocese of Duluth.
“While in the diocese, he did assist at several parishes. In 1985, Father Bouillard’s faculties to serve as a priest in the Duluth Diocese were revoked after questions were raised about a guest from Guam staying with him,” Eller wrote.
Brouillard, who continues to receive a monthly retirement check from the Archdiocese of Agana, was ordained as a priest on Guam in 1948 and served here until 1981. He is being deposed in Minnesota this week in connection with the Guam lawsuits.
In 2013, Brouillard’s name appeared on a list of priests released by the Diocese of Duluth with credible allegations of child sexual abuse against them.
Although the Diocese of Duluth did not specify the nature of Brouillard’s personal problems, he had at least one criminal sexual conduct complaint filed against him shortly before leaving the island, according to a lawsuit.
In 1980, Brouillard was moved to St. Williams Catholic Church in Tumon, now the Blessed Diego de San Vitores Church, according to a lawsuit. While at St. Williams, according to a separate lawsuit, he was named in a criminal sex abuse complaint filed with police.
Former altar boy and Boy Scout Felix Manglona said he was abused by Brouillard when he was 13, and “after several years passed, Felix was assisting the statistician at the Guam Police Department under the cadet program. While performing his daily duties to review police reports and collect data, Felix reviewed a police report pertaining to Brouillard. Upon information and belief, an incident occurred at the St. Williams Catholic Church in Tumon involving Brouillard and a minor boy, resulting in a sexual abuse complaint being filed against Brouillard,” the lawsuit states.
Brouillard’s sexual activities involving children had been known to church officials for at least a decade before he left the island, according to an affidavit Brouillard signed last year.
“My actions were discussed and confessed to area priests as well as Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner who had approached me to talk about the situation. I was told to try to do better and say prayers as a penance,” he said in the affidavit.
Baumgartner died in 1970.
While at St. Williams, according to a lawsuit, Brouillard abused an altar boy, identified in court documents only as F.S.L. to protect his privacy. In 1981,when Brouillard moved to Minnesota, he invited F.S.L. and a friend to spend the summer with him. While there, according to the lawsuit, the boys were sexually abused.
Another lawsuit, filed by plaintiff J.T., stated that he was abused by Brouilard on Guam from 1972 to 1976. Around 1981, Brouillard brought him Minnesota, telling his parents he would be able to attend college there.The lawsuit said Brouillard tried to rape him in Minnesota.
More than 140 sex abuse lawsuits have been filed against the Archdiocese of Agana, 16 clergy members and three others affiliated with the church since the beginning of the year.
Chris Cunningham, former priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Palmdale, St. Lawrence Martyr Catholic Church in Redondo Beach and St. Louise de Marillac Catholic Church in Covina, (all in California) stands accused of sexually abusing numerous children.
Stephanie Baer, a reporter for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, writes:
A former priest who served in Southern California and was named in a 2015 child sexual abuse lawsuit allegedly molested at least four additional children at parishes in Palmdale, Redondo Beach and Covina, according to lawsuits recently filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Civil complaints filed in July and October allege former Rev. Chris Cunningham sexually molested boys ages 10 to 15 from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Palmdale, St. Lawrence Martyr Catholic Church in Redondo Beach and St. Louise de Marillac Catholic Church in Covina.
The lawsuits, which name the churches and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as defendants, also allege the archdiocese knew of the allegations against Cunningham.
The archdiocese did not investigate, opting instead to transfer the priest to various assignments and destroy the complaints, according to the court filings. None of the plaintiffs is named in the lawsuits.
Robert Flummerfelt of Canon Law Services, which is representing Cunningham, said in an email that the former priest denies the allegations and has “never sexually abused anyone.”
he new lawsuits come after a 2015 case filed by the same attorney, Anthony DeMarco, on behalf of a plaintiff who he said was sexually molested as a 12-year-old boy at St. Louise in Covina from 2001 to 2002.
“We’ve since that time learned of quite a few more victims of his abuse,” DeMarco said Tuesday. “Folks in charge of youth at every parish he was at leading up to St. Louise and at St. Louise were aware of that conduct and nearly all of them reported their suspicions and concerns to their superiors.”
All three complaints describe Cunningham as regularly having underage boys alone with him in his church living quarters, regularly wrestling with them on church grounds and regularly meeting with them without chaperones outside of church.
Cunningham was removed from active ministry in 2006.
The archdiocese said in a statement that Cunningham was reassigned from St. Louise in 2004 “due to management issues not related to misconduct” and that the church “was not aware of any alleged sexual misconduct until 2015,” when the initial lawsuit was filed.
“The archdiocese received allegations of improper boundary violations concerning Fr. Cunningham in August 2005,” the archdiocese said in the statement. “According to archdiocesan policy, the matter was investigated and an announcement concerning the allegations was made at the parish informing the parish community.”
Stephen Howard, pastor of Muscoy United Methodist Church in San Bernadino, California, was convicted last week of ” 32 counts of sexual abuse, including lewd acts upon a child, oral copulation of a person under 16 years old and sodomy of a person under 18.”
The pastor of the Muscoy United Methodist Church, charged with multiple counts of child molestation involving boys who attended the church, was found guilty by a San Bernardino County jury last week, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office said.
Stephen James Howard, 58, was convicted Friday, Oct. 27, of 32 counts of sexual abuse, including lewd acts upon a child, oral copulation of a person under 16 years old and sodomy of a person under 18, court records showed. He is being housed at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga with no bail, according to jail records.
Howard is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 29 in San Bernardino.
Howard was arrested and charged in March 2014, according to court records. Detectives had investigated reports that month that Howard had molested boys at several locations, including San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana, San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials have said.
The department’s Crimes Against Children took over the case and found two victims, a 14-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man from Rancho Cucamonga, sheriff’s officials said. The older victim said the abuse began when he was 9, and continued into adulthood, authorities noted.
Twelve of the counts involve acts committed between 1990 and 2000, according to court records. The most recent charges involve acts committed between 2011 and 14.
“I am deeply grieved by this sad situation and earnestly ask for your prayers for all who are affected,” United Methodist Bishop Minerva G. Carcano said in a 2014 interview. “As United Methodists we stand firmly against child abuse, sexual abuse and sexual misconduct.”
Howard had been lead pastor at the Muscoy United Methodist Church since 2001. He was also youth director at a United Methodist Church in Ontario from 1989 to 2001.
