November 22, 2010 -
SPRINGFIELD — Springfield police says burglars have struck seven churches in seven days.
KVAL-TV reported police learned Saturday of the seventh such break-in. It happened at First Baptist Church and was the second time in a week that thieves hit that particular church.
Springfield Police spokesman Russ Boring said thieves are targeting churches in the early-morning hours. He said they force their way in, and take money and small electronics equipment.
“It’s surprising because usually the churches are the places that help the homeless and people that need help,” said Boring. “Usually if someone needs something, the church works very hard to get them the basics.”
First Church of the Nazarene and Twin Rivers Baptist Church have also been hit.
Posted By rodneypires on November 22, 2010
Category: Church Burglary
Tags: Church Burglary
MILWAUKEE — November 19,2010 – A bishop at a Milwaukee church was charged on Friday with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl who attended his church. Police and prosecutors said they believe the claims made by the 14-year-old girl, who gave them detailed descriptions of the sexual assaults she said began when she was 11 years old.The girl said the assaults began at his north side home and in the office of Fox’s former church near Ninth and Burleigh streets.She told detectives they had “happened too many times for her to be able to put a number on it.”The girl said Bishop Joe Fox Sr., 60, assaulted her several times over the last three years.
Fox was arrested on Monday. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of more than 250 years in prison.
Posted By rodneypires on November 22, 2010
Category: Sex Crimes
Tags: Sex Crimes
November 20, 2010 – Police were called to Saint Vincent De Paul Roman Catholic Church at Figueroa and Adams.Angelica DeLeon says two men tried to kidnap her 2-year-old daughter right out of her arms. DeLeon says the men didn’t say anything, but one man tried to grab the toddler while the other grabbed her from behind.
“Had it not been for the citizens who decided to get involved, we would have probably not caught these individuals,” said LAPD.
Posted By rodneypires on November 22, 2010
Category: Child Abductions
Tags: Child Abductions
November 19, 2010 – CHINO — A former administrator at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills has pleaded no contest to embezzling money from the church.
Farrukh Ahmed, 48, entered his plea Thursday in Chino Superior Court as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors that carries a nine-month jail sentence.
Ahmed’s plea bargain also calls for him to be placed on probation for three years and to pay $25,000 in restitution to the church. The Ontario resident is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 20.
Ahmed was arrested in December by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies who accused him of embezzling about $750,000 from the church between 2006 and 2009.
Deputy District Attorney Will Wooten said that Ahmed is required to repay only $25,000 because prosecutors felt they would have been unable to prove the embezzlement was as extensive as church officials believed.
Posted By rodneypires on November 22, 2010
Category: Church Embezzlement
Tags: Church Embezzlement
November 18, 2010 – 
York, PA – A former deacon is being held in York County Prison on charges of sexually assaulting two minors from a York congregation, police said.
Carlos Enrique Ramirez-Nova, 24, was working as a deacon for an unknown amount of time, police said, when he assaulted the girls earlier this year. The girls and their families were members of the church, police said.
Posted By rodneypires on November 22, 2010
Category: Sex Crimes
Tags: Sex Crimes
OTTAWA — A man already facing 15 sex charges involving a young boy faces new accusations in connection with a second victim.
The most recent victim said he met the 32-year-old man at a community church group, police said. The boy told police he’d been sexually assaulted multiple times in 2008 and 2009.
The man was already facing 15 sex charges after another victim — a 10-year-old boy — complained of assaults that had taken place over a six-month period in 2009, police said.
Scott Robert Bareham is charged with 10 counts each of sexual assault and sexual interference.
He was charged in April with five counts each of sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching.
Bareham was arrested Tuesday and appeared in court Wednesday.
Posted By rodneypires on November 22, 2010
Category: Sex Crimes
Tags: Sex Crimes
November 16th, 2010 – Oakland, California – A man attending a class at an East Oakland church Tuesday was lured outside and shot to death on the sidewalk under a cross, church members said.
Police declined to provide details beyond the location and the time of the shooting, 11:45 a.m. No arrests have been made.
Posted By rodneypires on November 22, 2010
Category: Church Shootings
Tags: Church Shootings
Nov 12, 2010 -
Police say a 32-year-old Lake Worth church was vandalized with graffiti this week.
Symbols and profanity were spray-painted on Central Full Gospel Fellowship’s glass front door, brick facade and outside concrete walkway sometime between Wednesday night and Friday morning.
Church members discovered the vandalism Friday morning when they arrived to clean the inside of the building on Delaware Trail.
Posted By rodneypires on November 15, 2010
Category: Church Vandalism
Tags: Church Vandalism
Nov 12, 2010 -
AURORA — The family of a girl who was sexually abused by an Aurora minister has filed suit against him and his church.
In a lawsuit filed this month in Kane County court, the girl’s mother accuses Bountiful Blessings Church of failing to protect the girl from the advances of former pastor Lee Palmer. (The victim is not identified in the suit.)
Palmer is serving a 19-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in April to predatory criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse for engaging in sexual acts with the girl. Prosecutors said Palmer told investigators that he was “overcome by the demon of lust,” that the victim was “asking for it,” and that the victim was “in heat,” when the assaults occurred.
According to the suit, the girl was between 9- and 11-years-old when Palmer sexually assaulted he in a church van, at the church at 15 S. East Ave. in Aurora and at a Bountiful Blessings food pantry at 901 E. Galena Blvd. in Aurora.
The suit alleges that Palmer was responsible for “guiding young people on their spiritual paths” and was “bound by duty to act in a manner consistent” with that role. Instead Palmer used his position as a church leader to “gain the trust of church members, including (the child), in order to posture his sexual advances in a non-dangerous way.”
The suit accuses the church of breach of duty for providing the opportunity for the molestations to occur and for failing to screen Palmer for dangerous sexual tendencies.
Palmer’s actions would have and should have been foreseeable because Palmer engaged in extramarital affairs with several women and fathered at least three children with two of those women, the suit claims.
“Palmer posed a significant risk to the youth involved and should not have been entrusted with the safety of minor children,” the suit says.
The suits also claims that the church had been warned by members of the church that Palmer posed a risk, but the did nothing.
The church did not return calls for comment Friday. Palmer’s wife is still listed as the pastor of Bountiful Blessings.
Posted By rodneypires on November 15, 2010
Category: Sex Crimes
Tags: Sex Crimes
MINNEAPOLIS – A 43-year-old man who teaches Sunday school and runs senior programs at a south Minneapolis church has been charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.
Ruben Ramirez-Toxtle is charged with one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor. According to the complaint, Ramirez-Toxtle is a pastor at Iglesia Centro Cristiano de Minneapolis. In court, his defense attorney said he is not a pastor, but prosecutors said he teaches Sunday school and senior programs, which are positions of authority.
According to the charges, the alleged victim and her family are members of the church.
The girl told her mom that Ramirez-Toxtle had touched her breasts and told her he was falling love with her. When several members of the church staff confronted him about the allegations, Ramirez-Toxtle admitted he had done what she said, but said he never had sex with her. He was given a letter reprimanding his behavior.
In an interview with police on Nov. 2, the girl said Ramirez-Toxtle had touched her breasts over her clothing and rubbed her buttocks over her clothes several times in July and August at the church, and said he told her he was in love with her.
Bail has been set at $25,000 for Ruben Ramirez-Toxtle, with conditions he stay away from children and the church.
Posted By rodneypires on November 8, 2010
Category: Sex Crimes
Tags: Sex Crimes
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