Probation officer gives office BJ to boot-camp teen
What Wouldn't Jesus Do?: Valentin Mejillones Busted With Nearly a Quarter Ton of Cocaine
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 9:00 am
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Virginia youth pastor Jason Bolton struck up a friendship three years ago with one of his youth group members, which turned romantic early this year. The thing is that the young lady in question is only 17.
Not only does that make Bolton a pedophile, but it's pretty crappy news for his wife and three children.
The 32-year old Bolton studied Art at the University of Delaware before discovering Christ (who obviously didn't spot Bolton coming). He's been working at the Potomac Crest Baptist Church since 2007.
In a post that has since been removed from the church website, Bolton admits, "I make mistakes every day. My hope is through my life I can show youth that Jesus loves them."
Yeah, only not like that.
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Money can get you a lot of things, but offer it to a 15-year old to perform a sexual act, and all it will get you is jail time. Lawrence Brown allegedly propositioned the underage girl with $100 in Slidell, Louisiana, but she refused his offer. Eight days later, police arrested Brown, who is an associate minister at the Starlight Missionary Baptist Church.
His idea of what "missionary" entails was quite mistaken.
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Have you heard the one about the priest with a penchant for child pornography? The names change, but the story remains the same. St. Patrick's pastor Patrick Umberger, who also served as a chaplain for the parish school and Aquinas middle school, was arrested in Onalaska, Wisconsin for child pornography after police discovered three graphic pictures of nearly nude children on his computer.
According to the criminal complaint, Umberger admitted to a state agent that he is attracted to boys and young men, and searched the internet for pictures of boys 12 to 15 years old. He also admitted to having a software program that regularly cleaned his hard drive, perhaps explaining the lack of more pictures.
Umberger first came to police attention a year earlier, when a family noticed him sitting near a kiddie pool and following boys into the men's room at Noah's Ark Water Park at the Wisconsin Dells. Park employees called the police.
The 59-year old explained to the officers that he had a season pass and was near the restrooms because he had a prostate trouble and had to urinate often (which would explain why he never waited in any of the lines for the rides). The officer noted in her report that she questioned Umberger for an hour, and not once did he need to use the bathroom. (Puzzling!) Suffice to say, the park revoked his season pass, and put him on a watch list.
The Lake Delton police shared the information with Onalaska police, who discovered Umberger had befriended many young boys on Facebook. (Nothing suspicious about that!)
Critics have long complained about the handling of clergy sex abuse allegations in LaCrosse. Indeed, Umberger was ordained in 1980 by former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who resigned in 2002 after admitting the archdioceses secretly paid $450,000 to a man who accused Weakland of sexual abuse.
You know what they say about how a fish rots...
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Just because Catholic priests get most of the press doesn't mean they're the only ones abusing their position of authority. A trail of accusations follows Orthodox Rabbi Stanley Levitt from his time in Massachusetts during the mid '70s to Philadelphia, where he settled after leaving the prestigious Maimonides School in Brookline, MA.
Levitt was charged in three separate cases in Philadelphia from 2001 to 2003 related to allegations of indecent assault of a minor. He was found not guilty in one, the complaint was withdrawn in another, and in the third he was sentenced to five years of probation.
Last year, the 64-year old Levitt was charged with four counts of indecent assault and battery of a child for offenses allegedly committed on two children in the '70s. A third victim recently came forward, emboldened by the media coverage, and Levitt was arraigned on this additional count last week.
The latest indictment involves a sleepover and study session at Levitt's home where he instructed the boys to take a shower before bed. When the victims exited the shower, Levitt was allegedly standing there with a towel, and told the victim he needed to towel him off. (A fitting euphemism.)
Aside from the shame, there is a strong more within the Orthodox community against informing on fellow believers to secular authorities, known as "mesirah."
According to a report in the Boston Globe on the matter, one of the rabbi's victims was himself arrested for a similar case of sexual abuse a decade ago. Though the alleged abuse occurred between 1975 and 1977, the statute of limitations stops ticking when the suspected perpetrator leaves the state. Levitt's lawyer has asserted the victims' recollections are "inherently unreliable" (presumably because being sexually abused by a religious leader at the age of 11 is something you'd likely forget over time).
Levitt no longer works at a synagogue and apparently sustains himself on his pension and by repairing damaged Torah scrolls. Sadly, the damage allegedly done to these once young men is a lot harder to fix.
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Doing the Lord's work isn't necessarily financially rewarding. Perhaps that's why Aymara priest Valentin Mejillones and his son took up with an unidentified Colombian couple who were all arrested in possession of 530 pounds of liquid cocaine, with a reported value of around $290,000.
According to Mejillones, the couple told him they were making herbal pills and ointments. (The kind that will can keep you up for days, make you ramble on incoherently and give you a powerful feeling of elation.) Neighbors alerted the authorities because of the strong chemical smell emanating from Mejillones' home in the slum city of El Alto on the high Andean plain above the Bolivian capital of La Paz.
The 55-year old Mejillones is a well-respected religious leader who swore in Bolivian President Evo Morales during a 2006 inauguration ceremony in the Andes at the pre-Inca ruins of Tiwanaku. Whether it's operating drug lab or simply naive credulity (particularly given Bolivia's long history of coca cultivation), it's obvious Mejillones is guilty of something.
Read last Tuesday's What Wouldn't Jesus Do?: Richard Wilson Offers 12-Year-Old Cash For Nude Photos.
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