Former minister gets prison for decade-long sex abuse of boy

By Sasha Goldstein
New York Daily News
July 28, 2015

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/crime/minister-prison-decade-long-sex-abuse-boy-article-1.2306790

Norman (Ted) Faux, a former United Methodist Pastor in Lake Ariel, Pa., will spend up to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing a boy for a decade.

The small-town pastor lost his credentials in 2011 and was arrested last year after his victim's girlfriend found lewd, sexually explicit text messages on his cell phone from Faux.

Faux had little to say to reports as he was led off to prison.

A former Pennsylvania minister who was HIV positive while he sexually abused a boy for approximately a decade will serve up to 15 years in prison.

Norman (Ted) Faux started abusing the child at age 9 and continued the abuse for years, eventually plying the boy with drugs in exchange for sex, according to WNEP-TV.

For much of the time, he served as a United Methodist Pastor in Lake Ariel, a small village 20 miles outside Scranton, Pa.

“He perverted his role as a clergyman. He is a despicable fella and one of the most manipulative defendants I’ve ever dealt with,” First Assistant Wayne County District Attorney Pat Robinson told the TV station.

Faux had his credentials as a pastor suspended and he eventually relinquished the title after allegations led to a church trial in 2011. Church officials discovered he’d been sexually abusing a parishioner.

Faux was arrested in August 2014 and charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, aggravated assault and indecent assault.

The deviant was found out when the victim’s girlfriend found a text message where Faux asked to perform oral sex on the victim, who was 19 in 2014, the Citizen’s Voice reported.

The boy told authorities the abuse began in 2004 when he was 9 and continued until a few weeks before Faux’s arrest, the newspaper reported. The child would watch pornographic videos to distract himself during the abuse.

Faux pleaded guilty to child sex abuse charges in April and was sentenced this week. After his release from prison, Faux will have to register as a sexually violent predator, according to WNEP.

“The heinous acts that he’s committed, he needs to be incarcerated so that others can be protected,” Reverend Marian Hartman, who oversees about 100 United Methodist churches in the Scranton area, told the news station. “It’s an immense betrayal of faith and it causes spiritual harm to a lot of folks who trusted and believed in someone like that.”