Category Archive for : ‘YOUTH MINISTER’

February 22, 2021
Mary Schenk
News Gazette

URBANA — A former youth minister at a Champaign church who admitted repeatedly having sex with an underage teen parishioner faces up to 23 years in prison when he is sentenced.

Roger VanRaden, 49, whose last known address was on County Road 2900 North in rural Rantoul, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of criminal sexual assault for having sex with a teenage girl who was in his congregation.

In a plea agreement negotiated by Assistant State’s Attorney Troy Lozar and Urbana attorney Evan Bruno, the state dismissed

December 20, 2019
Donna Thornton
Gadsden Times

A once prominent Alabama youth evangelist on Friday received the maximum sentences after pleading guilty in Etowah County to 28 sex offenses committed against boys, ages 12 to 16, whom he encountered through his ministry.
Acton Bowen’s consecutive sentences total 1,008 years, and maximum monetary fines of $840,000 were imposed.
Bowen pleaded guilty to all charges against him — multiple counts of second-degree sodomy, enticing a child for sex, traveling to meet a child for sex, facilitating travel of a child for sex and second-degree sexual abuse.
Bowen was

Newsday/Robin Topping

Matthew Maiello, a 31 year old man who formerly directed the youth ministry at St. Raphael’sRoman Catholic Church in East Meadow, was charged with sexually abusing two teenagers he metthrough the parish. Maiello, of 39 Grove Street in Lynbrook, was arrested in the parking lot ofKellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale on April 4, 2003. He had been an English teacher therefor nearly two years, since leaving his job at the church. There have been no similar incidentsreported at the high school. Cops say Maiello molested two girls in

Christopher T. Ross, a 33 former youth minister at St. Kilian Catholic Church in Farmingdale, was arrested and charged after admitting to police that he sodomized a 17 year old boy in April 2001. The victim, now 20, met Ross through the church’s youth group when he was 15. He told police about the alleged sodomy earlier this year, saying that it happened while he was sleeping at Ross’ home on April 27, 2001. Parents of children who attend religious education classes at St. Kilian say the church pastor wasn’t

Carlos Desuze, a 32 year old former youth minister from Baldwin, was charged with third degree statutory rape yesterday after a 17 year old girl told her parents and police she was having a sexual relationship with the minister that began when she was 16.  Desuze was arrested at his parents home at 984 Steele Blvd., in Freeport.  He had been employed as a youth minister for the Word of Life Ministries in Freeport for the past five years until a month ago.  He knew the teen and her family