Black Collar Sex Crime Round-Up: October 20, 2009
John H. Harris, Jr. • Stanley Zusia Levitt • Timothy Allen Ortiz
David Pearce • Fr. Gerald Robinson • Curtis Watts
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sex crimes of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Move for new trial: Lonny J. Aleshire, Jr., 38, associate pastor (and son of senior pastor), Licking Baptist Church, Hebron, Ohio, convicted in 2005 and “sentenced to seven years in prison after he pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including first-degree felony rape, for sexual conduct with two girls — ages 15 and 17 at the time — while they were parishioners” at his church. Story: Newark Advocate, January 26, 2005; Columbus Dispatch, April 26, 2007; Newark Advocate, October 7, 2009; Ohio Sex Offender Registry record
Accused: Fr. David Dueppen, 42, Roman Catholic priest, Miami Archdiocese and associate priest, St. Maximilian Kolbe Church, Pembroke Pines, Florida, of fathering a child by an ex-stripper. After a knockdown-dragout, the stripper stated: “He is the devil He is the devil dressed as an angel.” Coincidentally (or not), “Dueppen was once the pastor at the same church in Miami Beach recently led by Father Alberto Cutié, the popular television personality who paparazzi cameras caught in an embrace with a woman on the beach.” Story: Miami Herald; CBS4, September 20, 2009
Indicted: Hence Hamblin, Jr., 66, former pastor, West Middletown Church of God, Madison Township, Ohio, for “for allegedly inappropriately touching an underage female,” and charged with one count of gross sexual imposition, a fourth-degree felony. 
“Hamblin is related to Michael Hamblin, 40, who has been arrested numerous times and is now in prison for exposing himself to young children…” Story: Conservative Babylon, September 16, 2009; Cincinnati Enquirer, October 14, 2009
Under investigation: John H. Harris, Jr., and Galilee Baptist Church, Trenton, New Jersey, of which Harris is pastor, by the state’s Division on Civil Rights on allegations by a former church employee who claims she was “fired after reporting she was sexually harassed by” Harris. Story: New Jersey Newsroom, September 25, 2009; NJ.com, September 25, 2009
Indicted: Orthodox Rabbi Stanley Zusia Levitt, 63, of Phildelphia, Pennsylvania, former teacher, Maimonides School (devoted to reinforcing students’ “commitment to Torah and observance of mitzvot“), Brookline, Massachusetts, on four counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under 14, against two of his former male students, who were about 11 at the time the alleged attacks occurred in the mid-1970s. Story: TheBostonChannel.com, September 24, 2009; Boston Globe, October 8, 2009; OfficialWire, October 8, 2009
Charged: Timothy Allen Ortiz, 44, pastor, Father’s Heart Ministries, Midland, Michigan, with third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving force or coercion against a 17-year-old girl. Immediately after his arrest, Ortiz’s church issued a statement that began: “We at Father’s Heart Ministries recognize the severity of the sin committed by Tim Ortiz.” Story: WNEM (video), September 30, 2009; Midland Daily News, September 30, 2009; October 7, 2009
Sentenced: Fr. David Pearce, 67, Roman Catholic Benedictine priest of West London’s Ealing Abbey monastery, and retired junior-school headmaster of St. Benedict’s School — dubbed “The Devil in a Dog Collar” by the British media — to eight years, after pleading guilty to ten counts (of 24 charged) of indecent assault, sexual touching and gross indecency with five boys under the age of 16, four of whom were under 14. In 2006, one of the victims, assaulted in the 1990s, waged a successful civil lawsuit against both Pearce and Ealing Abbey, resulting in monetary damages. Pearce’s attacks on boys reportedly go back to 1972. In 2007, a second Ealing Abbey priest and St. Benedict’s teacher, Fr. Gerald Stanislaus Hobbs, 76, was cleared of charges he had exposed himself and sexually assaulted a student in the mid-1980s. Story: Ealing Times, April 13, 2006; December 9, 2008; BBC, October 2, 2009
Appeal denied: Fr. Gerald Robinson, 70, Toledo, Ohio, Roman Catholic priest, convicted in 2006 (despite conflicting DNA evidence) and currently serving 15 years to life (he will be eligible for parole in 2021) for the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, by the U.S. Supreme Court. “According to evidence at the trial, the 71-year-old nun had been choked nearly to death and then stabbed 31 times in the chest, neck, and face with a saber-shaped letter opener”; her body was found “on the floor of the sacristy, next to the chapel, of the former Mercy Hospital in Toledo.” Prosecutors termed the murder “ritualistic”; the nun was stabbed “31 times through an altar cloth, with the punctures forming an upside-down cross. Her killer then anointed her with a smudge of her blood on the forehead to humiliate her in death, prosecutors said.” The case was reopened in 2004 after a woman claimed to be the victim of years of ritual sex abuse by priests in the Toledo Diocese, including Robinson. Robinson is serving 15 years to life; he will be eligible for parole in 2021. Story: MSNBC; Fox News, May 11, 2006; Toledo Blade, October 7, 2009
Not Sex, But Bizarre Violence:
Dead: Rev. Curtis Watts, 48, pastor, Shining Light Baptist Church, Clay County, Alabama, shot and killed by police September 25, 2009, after the minister chopped off a deputy’s hand with an axe. A week earlier, Watts’ wife called police, claiming he had assaulted her; when officers arrived at the Watts home, Watts was waiting for them with a rifle. Officers tasered him repeatedly; Watts was charged with resisting arrest and later released on bond. His wife took out a restraining order, and when deputies attempted to serve it, Watts started swinging an axe at Sgt. Jason Freeman, chopping off the officer’s hand. At least one other officer opened fire and killed Watts. (Surgeons reattached Freeman’s hand.) Story: NBC13.com, September 28, 2009; True Crime Report, September 29, 2009
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