Black Collar Crime Round-Up: January 14, 2011
Paul Groover and Darrell Moore • Kevin Lauritsen • Kathryn Vail-Wesley
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins 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.
Arrested again: Dino Cardelli, 49, staunchly anti-gay founder & former senior pastor, Calvary Chapel of Arcata, California, for violating a court order to refrain from contact with one of his alleged victims. Last September, Cardelli pleaded not guilty to four felony counts of sex abuse against one of his adopted daughters, a girl under 14 — the knowledge of which reportedly led his wife to kill herself in early 2010. In November, Cardelli was arrested a second time on new charges of three more counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14, when a second alleged victim came forward. Story: Conservative Babylon, September 16, 2010; Conservative Babylon, November 2, 2010; Times-Standard, January 13, 2011
Skipped out on trial: James Cooper, 57, youth group teacher, “now-defunct” Ambassador Church, London, Ontario, who also “ran a boarding house with strict religious doctrine-based rules,” who “was to appear Monday in the Superior Court of Justice after the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned his 2009 acquittals last March. … Cooper is accused of assaulting two women — one of them developmentally delayed — and faces a total of six charges of sexual assault and assault with a weapon.” London Free Press also notes: the Ambassador Church’s “pastor, Royden Wood, 60, was convicted in 2008 of beating three boys who attended the church’s alternative school in the 1980s and grabbing the breasts of two church members.” Story: London Free Press, January 10, 2011
Trial delayed: Keith Dickerson, firefighter and former youth pastor, Louisville, Kentucky, charged with raping a four-year-old girl as well as incest, sodomy, sexual abuse of a child under 12 and distributing obscene material to a minor. Expected to begin January 12th, Dickerson’s trial was pushed back to May 16th. Arrested in 2008, Dickerson is also accused of raping an adult woman. Story: WAVE, May 8, 2008; WLKY, January 12, 2011; WAVE, January 12, 2011
Charged: Paul Keith Groover, 56, son of Gentle Groover, Sr., pastor, Greater Refuge Temple, Jacksonville, Florida, and church janitor, and brother-in-law Darrell Vincent Moore, 45, on multiple counts of child sexual abuse alleged to have occurred repeatedly over the course of a decade. Per News4Jax, “Investigators said Groover admitted to having a relationship with the teen, telling them he’d had at least 20 different sexual encounters with [a 13-year-old boy] inside the church and sent nude photos of himself to the victim. Groover also admitted that he and the boy were almost caught once during a Bible study, but the door was locked and they stayed quiet.” Story: News4Jax, January 11, 2011
Sentenced: Kevin Lauritsen, 50, to four years after copping a plea to conspiracy for his role in a Boulder, Colorado, church Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out about $1 million. Lauritsen was charged in 2010 along with Douglas Wertzbaugher and Loren Ankarlo, former pastor, City on the Hill Church, who in December pleaded guilty to multiple charges of securities fraud. Story: Conservative Babylon December 17, 2010; Longmont Times-Call , January 12, 2011
Sentenced: Kathryn Vail-Wesley, 24, former teacher, Chicago Hope Academy (”a co-educational, non-denominational college and life preparatory school dedicated to nurturing and challenging the whole person — mind, body and spirit, to the glory of God”), Chicago, Illinois, to two years of “sex offender probation” after pleading guilty to sexually molesting a 17-year-old football player, a student at the “Christ-centered” school, in 2008. In 2009, the boy sued the school for “intentional infliction of emotional distress, willful and wanton misconduct, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty,” alleging not only that “the school ‘turned a blind eye’ to sexual abuse and exploitation,” but that he was “forced out of school following revelations of the assault.” Story: WBBM, August 21, 2009; Chicago Sun-Times, January 12, 2011
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