Nevada pastor faces
child sex abuse charges
Church had been affiliated with Louisville
ministries
Feb 5, 2013 |
Eric Tucker | Associated Press
WASHINGTON
— A Las Vegas man has been charged in Maryland with molesting boys in the 1980s
while assisting with youth ministries at a church targeted in a child sex abuse
lawsuit.
Nathaniel
Morales, who had been working as a pastor in Nevada, is accused in an
indictment of sexually abusing the boys when he worked with Covenant Life
Church in Gaithersburg, Md.
That
church until December was associated with Sovereign Grace Ministries, a
Louisville-based evangelical church group accused in a lawsuit in Maryland last
fall of covering up allegations of child sex abuse by its members.
The
lawsuit was amended last month to name Covenant Life Church as among the new
defendants.
An
indictment returned in December charged Morales, 55, with 10 counts of either
sex abuse or sex offense. The indictment says the sex acts involved four boys
and occurred between 1985 and 1990, when police say Morales was helping the
church with youth ministries, conducted Bible studies, teaching at a Christian
school and hosting sleepovers.
Morales,
who was arrested in southern Nevada and extradited to Maryland, is scheduled
for a pretrial hearing on Friday in Montgomery County Circuit Court, online
court records show. His lawyer did not return calls seeking comment and a
telephone listing for Morales could not be found.
The
criminal investigation began in 2009 when a man reported to police that he was
sexually abused by Morales when he was between the ages of 12 and 20. The man
told police that his parents had spoken to the church pastor but that no police
report was made.
Several
other men interviewed by police said they had been sexually abused by Morales
as boys — sometimes in their own bedrooms or inside his apartment or his office
at the school where he taught.
The
Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they are victims of
sexual assault.
Police
interviewed a co-pastor at the church who recalled confronting Morales about
the allegations. The pastor told police that “normally the church would appeal
to the person to stop his criminal behavior and then, should it not stop, they
would alert people that the person is not acting in a Christian manner. The
person would need to show contrition,” according to a police report filed in
the case. The pastor said going to the police was in the “realm of
possibilities,” but that he took his cues from the families, the police report
says.
Another
pastor, Grant Layman, said he had communicated with Morales several years ago
and that Morales had admitted to “alcohol abuse and homosexuality,” the police
report says.
He
said that Morales told him that he remembered having committed abuses and
having confessed his past to an older pastor, but that Morales now said he was
very ill and could not recall the specifics of anything that occurred.
Don
Nalle, the communications director of Covenant Life Church, would not discuss
the specifics of Morales’ criminal case, deferring to a statement posted last
month on the church’s website. That statement says the church is investigating
the allegations.
“We
are sickened by the thought of such abuse — sexual abuse in any form is evil
and unconscionable. We are grieved by these allegations. We also recognize that
we don’t have all the facts. We would encourage everyone to withhold judgment
until an appropriate legal process can be completed,” the statement reads in
part.
A
lawsuit filed last October accuses leaders at Sovereign Grace Ministries, a
three-decade-old family of churches, of failing to report allegations of sexual
abuse to the police and of shielding known sexual predators of children.
Sovereign
Grace Ministries moved its headquarters to Louisville last year — and planted
its first Kentucky congregation here — after three decades in Maryland.
It
has struggled in recent years with fractured leadership and criticism over its
discipline methods, especially the church’s emphasis on sins, discipline and
repentance.
Susan
Burke, the lawyer who brought the case, said in a written statement that the
“indictment supports our lawsuit’s allegations of extensive wrongdoing by
Sovereign Grace Ministries and its pastors. We look forward to our day in
court.”
Sovereign
Grace Ministries has said the suit contains “a number of misleading
allegations, as well as considerable mischaracterizations of intent.”
It
has also said that First Amendment religious-liberty protections would be threatened
if the lawsuit succeeds in “allowing courts to second guess pastoral guidance.”
Police
say they’re tracking the lawsuit and will conduct additional investigations if
new information emerges.
Covenant
Life is one of several congregations that have broken ties with Sovereign Grace
in recent months. It had been the largest in the denomination and was long led
by C.J. Mahaney, the president of the denomination.
Before
the defections, the denomination reported having about 90 congregations with
about 28,000 members.
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