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发帖数: 844 | 1 http://www.courier-journal.com/viewart/20130205/NEWS01/30205006
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. | I******l
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