A 25-year-old former youth ministry director has been charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl he met at church. Matthew Jonas Overstreet, who worked at several North Texas churches, was arrested a month ago after a Plano girl told detectives she had been sexually assaulted in December. Police said the incident followed years of Overstreet sending the girl sexual messages.... Court documents show that police believe Overstreet met the girl in 2007, when he was a youth group intern at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Plano. He worked at the church from May 2006 until August 2007. After he left the church, Overstreet started to send her "sexual remarks" via Facebook and text message, court documents say. The girl told police that Overstreet came to her house at 3 a.m. Dec. 19 and had sex with her in her bedroom.... Overstreet most recently worked at Spring Valley United Methodist Church in Far North Dallas, which fired him days before he was charged.... Overstreet, who graduated from Texas Christian University, is in his third year at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology. He was also working toward being ordained in the United Methodist Church.
Ohio:
A former Van Wert youth pastor made his first appearance in court Monday morning to answer to four felony sexual battery counts against him. Benjamin R. Boysel, 33, entered not guilty pleas to the charges against him while nearly a dozen spectators and additional members of the media looked on. Boysel was arraigned after being indicted by the Van Wert County Grand Jury on Friday. He is accused of engaging in sexual contact with four different members of his youth group at Trinity United Methodist Church in Van Wert. Each of the females in the case were under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged incidents.
A former Monroe youth minister was convicted Wednesday of sexually assaulting and sending naked photos to a 15-year-old girl he was counseling. David Esarey mouthed the words, "I love you," to his sobbing wife and then shrugged after a Superior Court jury of three men and three women found him guilty of second-degree sexual assault, promoting a minor in an obscene performance, possession of child pornography and three counts of risk of injury to a minor.... Esarey, youth minister at the Stepney Baptist Church until his arrest in this case in 2008, was accused of seducing the girl after she went to him for counseling concerning family. According to testimony during the two-week trial, Esarey, whose fiance refused to have sex with him until they were married, began contacting the girl through Facebook and e-mail attempting to attract her sexual interest.
Good Hope Christian Youth minister Pastor Jacques West allegedly dared the kids to swallow the live fish on stage during a service on Sunday. The Plumstead mom says her 12-year-old daughter came home and bragged about what she had done.... Pastor West admits he used the live goldfish during his sermon, but says no one was forced to eat the creature. "I took an extreme illustration and there were seven kids on the stage who said they didn't have the stomach for it and then there were a few who did," says West. "The word of God has power and authority in our lives."
