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  $800,000 Bail Set for Pastor
Amount Is for 4 Latest Abuse Charges

By Noah Haglund
The Post and Courier
December 15, 2006

http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=122735&pubDate=12/15/2006

Goose Creek - Congregants from Full Word Ministries embraced outside a courtroom Thursday after their senior pastor appeared in bond court on more charges of sexually assaulting teenage and pre-teen boys.

About a dozen members of the nondenominational church watched as Municipal Judge Shirley Johnson set Tyrone Moore's bail at $800,000 on the four new charges. Some family members of alleged victims also attended, wearing blue ribbons for child-abuse awareness.

Shackled and wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, Moore said little during the hearing. His attorney, Eduardo Curry, acknowledged that some members have left the North Charleston church recently.

"As always, you have members who come and go, you have differences of opinion," Curry said. "It's like every other family when your leader is absent."

He stressed that Moore's immediate family and "church family" continue to support him.

The 39-year-old church founder has been accused of abusing six youths at his Applebee Court home in Goose Creek.

The latest charges - one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and three counts of performing a lewd act on a child under 16 - involve three of those youths. A 15-year-old boy told police that Moore has molested him since he was 13; a 14-year-old boy said the pastor molested him since he was 12, and a third boy, now 12, said he was molested at 11.

His total bail in Berkeley County, including earlier charges, now stands at $1.175 million. Goose Creek and North Charleston police continue to investigate him.

North Charleston police arrested Moore in late November after a male churchgoer reported that the pastor performed sex acts on him at the Gordon Street church. The accuser said the abuse occurred in 2002 and 2003, when he was 17.

Moore left the Charleston County jail after posting $220,000 bail on charges of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and failing to register as a sex offender. Days later he was arrested again on a warrant from Goose Creek.

Moore is a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty in 1989 and 1991 to abusing two young girls. He started Full Word Ministries after serving nine years in prison.

Reach Noah Haglund at nhaglund@postandcourier.com or 937-5550.

 
 

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