The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: Youth Pastor Watch

Youth Pastor Allegedly Molested 15-Year-Old in "Old Sound Room"

Joseph Staten — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:09:00 -0700

Walter Yocum, a (now former) youth pastor at the Calvary Baptist Church in Bel Air, Maryland, allegedly sexually abused a 15-year-old girl during her stay at "Vacation Bible School" in July:

On Aug. 21, a 16-year-old girl came to the Child Advocacy Center and in a forensic interview, told interviewers she was approached by Yocum at VBS earlier this summer, according to charging documents.

The girl, who said she was 15 years old at the time, said Yocum asked her to meet him in the old sound room and while there, he allegedly touched her inappropriately.

Calvary Baptist Church issued a statement on its website on Aug. 19, which reported that three days earlier Yocum told Senior Pastor Ralph Green he had been "having an inappropriate relationship with someone other than his wife."

Senior Pastor Green then terminated Yocum after discovering that that "someone other," was, allegedly, a 15-year-old. Yocum is being held on $100,000 bail, and is facing charges of "third- and fourth-degree sexual offense, sexual abuse of a minor and second-degree assault."

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HIV-Positive Youth Pastor Allegedly Lured "Child" Using Circa-2006 Internet Tactics

Joseph Staten — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:21:00 -0700

I can't believe people seriously still try this:

An HIV positive youth pastor at a church in Courtice is accused of luring a 15-year-old boy online and attempting to meet the youngster for “a sexual encounter.”

Durham Regional Police claim the 42-year-old Newcastle man, who allegedly used collegetoy2033 as his profile name, befriended the teen online not knowing the boy was actually an undercover Internet Child Exploitation unit officer.

“Investigators met the accused at the prearranged location and after being taken into custody, it was determined (he) is a youth pastor with the (Trulls Road) Free Methodist Church in Courtice, Ontario, and has travelled extensively over the last decade,” Det. Randy Norton said Friday.

However, he was quick to point out “this luring incident is in no way connected to the church.”

Even in the heyday of To Catch a Predator, the Internet-child-luring scare was hugely overblown. Yet, allegedly, this still happens. At least in Canada.

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Youth Pastor Reportedly Helped Cover Kids' Heads With Pillow Cases, Bind Their Arms with Zip Ties, Pack Them All Into a Van, and Take Them into a Windowless Basement

Unpaid Intern — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:55:13 -0700

Posted by news intern Joseph Staten

An attorney for Pennsylvania youth pastor Andrew Jordan reportedly admits that his client helped orchestrate a fake kidnapping of his teen church group in March—during which at least one girl was crying, unaware that the whole thing was pretend. But it's all okay, the lawyer says, because the exercise was reportedly "meant to show the dangerous scenarios Christians face on missionary trips":

More than a dozen teens attended the youth group meeting at the church March 21 when the lights went out, and masked men carrying flashlights entered the meeting room.

The fake abductors ordered the teens to the floor, covered their heads with pillow cases and bound their wrists with zip ties, according to a grand jury presentment in the case.

The teens then were led into the back of a cargo van and driven around before being taken to a windowless unfinished basement. Once there, the pillowcases were removed, and they saw one of their captors holding an assault rifle and overheard their youth pastor supposedly being tortured.

Attorney William A. DeStefano, who is defending Jordan and Glad Tidings Assembly of God, told reporters that "The church is pretty serious: They don't think they did anything wrong." He then pulled a maneuver straight out of the victim-blaming playbook to brush aside a police complaint filed by a mother of one of the victims, who said her daughter was traumatized by the event.

DeStefano said of the alleged victim in this case: "She never asked to be let go, or said, 'I don't want to go through with this.'

"I'm not sure she knew before it happened, but I'm saying that she had the ability to say, 'I don't want to be part of this' at any time from minute one and didn't," DeStefano said.

Now, after a grand jury investigation, the district attorney reportedly says that both Jordan and the church broke the law. If convicted, Jordan could face up to 10 years in jail. He's expected to be arrested in a week or so.

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A "Youth Pastor" and "His" "Penis"

Unpaid Intern — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:18:59 -0700

Posted by news intern Joseph Staten

A 24-year-old Massachusetts woman who allegedly masqueraded as a teenage boy is facing federal charges for engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a 15-year-old girl who was unaware that the boyfriend she met online was actually a female, The Smoking Gun has learned. [...]

According to an affidavit sworn by an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigator, [Carissa] Hads—posing as a 17-year-old boy named “James Puryear Wilson”—met the teenage girl on an unnamed “social networking site” around October 2010.

“Wilson” maintained Facebook and MySpace pages that described him as a “youth pastor” living in Quincy, Massachusetts (where Hads actually resides).

Agents also allegedly found that Hads possessed a “fake, flesh-colored penis” used during a sexual encounter with the teenage victim, TSG reports.

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Who's wearing white robes here . . . .?

Chicago Fan — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:33:42 -0800

The Cardinal of the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church in Chicago compares the gay rights movement to the Ku Klux Klan. Because of an argument about routing the Gay Pride Parade. Out of touch, much?

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Don't Click on this Link!!!

Lindy West — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:41:31 -0700

Whatever you do, don't click here! Don't do it! DON'T! Stop! DOOOOON'T!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Youth Pastor Watch, O They Will Know We Are Christians, There Is No Morality Without Religion, Etc.

Dan Savage — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:24:08 -0700

One for the ages:

A Minnesota man who allegedly pimped his wife out for sex on Craigslist has been charged with a felony following his arrest at a downtown Chicago Hotel. Clinton Danner, 32, of Rockford, Minn., is accused of forcing his wife to have sex with strangers at locations across the country.

He was arrested Sunday night by Cook County Sheriff’s Police as he arrived to pick up his wife from a downtown Holiday Inn where he made her stay for the weekend, prosecutors said today. Though he’d planned for her to fly home Monday, he called to tell her he was disappointed by how little money she’d made over the weekend and was personally driving to Chicago to confront her, authorities said.

Seeking help, his wife secretly called the Polaris national sex trafficking hotline, leading to Danner’s arrest by Sheriff’s police.... Danner met his wife five years ago, when she was 17 and he was a 27-year-old church youth counselor, Antonietti said. By then, Danner already had a string of felony convictions in Minnesota, including two burglary convictions in 1996, a 1996 lottery fraud conviction and a 2002 drug conviction.

The Chicago Sun-Times didn't name the Minnesota church that allowed Danner—a man with a string of felony convictions"—to serve as youth counselor/pimp to teenage congregants.

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