Judge Rejects Plea in Pastor Sex Case
By Michael Rellahan
A proposed plea that would have sent a former youth pastor at a Chester County mega-church to prison for at least two years for allegedly having sex with a teenage parishioner was scuttled when the judge hearing the case refused to accept it, after hearing the victim say she thought the man deserved more time behind bars. Common Pleas President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody Wednesday rejected the plea that had been brought to her by Assistant District Attorney Emily Provencher, the prosecutor handling the case, and defense attorney Evan Kelly of West Chester, representing former pastor Jacob Matthew Malone, who saw the young girl become pregnant with his child. Cody called the circumstances surrounding the interactions between Malone and the complainant, now 20 and living with her child in Arizona, “way too serious,” according to accounts of the proceeding. “Given the facts of this case, I’m not going to accept this plea,” Cody said. The woman, who told police about Malone’s pursuit of her from the time she was 12 years old until he began having sex with her when he moved from the West to Chester County, read a statement in court Wednesday. The plea had been delayed until she could attend the hearing. Observers said the woman, whose name is being withheld, said Malone, whom she thought of as a father figure, took advantage of her “mentally, physically, spiritually.” She told Cody she thought he deserved more than the two- to four-year sentence called for in the plea agreement negotiated by Provencher and Kelly. She said she thought Malone as a “godly man,” but learned that he was, “something else when no one was watching.” The girl had told police Malone began to sexually assault her in the fall of 2014. She gave birth to her child in 2015. Under terms of the rejected agreement, Malone would have pleaded guilty to corruption of minors, institutional sexual assault and endangering the welfare of children. “I want to just express my sorrow and my regret over the things I’ve done,” he in a statement, according to reports. “She admired me, she looked up to me, and I betrayed that trust ... I betrayed the trust of thousands of people who put their faith in me as a member of the faith community across the country.” Malone resigned in November 2015 after church leaders confronted him about the teen’s pregnancy and he admitted he had impregnated her. He had worked at the church for about 18 months. Cody, a former county prosecutor who had helped form the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit, of which Provencher is now a member, questioned why the charge of rape had been dropped by the prosecution in the plea. Provencher said her office believed there would be difficulty proving that the woman had not consented to the physical contact between the two. Now, Provencher and Kelly will likely return to negotiations to determine whether a new plea agreement can be reached, or the case will go to trial. They are expected to return to Cody’s courtroom sometime in early April. Malone, 34, of Exton, is charged with rape, sexual assault, institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors, and endangering the welfare of children. He has been held on bail in Chester County Prison since his arrest in January 2016 after returning to the United States from Ecuador. According to police, the victim reported that she had met Malone at a church in Mesa, Ariz., when she was approximately 12 years old. Malone was a pastor at the church that the victim attended. Several years later, in June of 2014, Malone contacted the then 17-year-old victim and invited her to stay with him and his family in Minnesota, where he had become a pastor at a local church. While in Minnesota, police said, the victim alleged that Malone began trying to have inappropriate contact with her. In July 2014, Malone moved his family to Chester County, where he was starting a new position as a pastor at Calvary Fellowship, a non-denominational church off Route 100. Malone again invited the victim to live with him and his family, and he even registered the victim in a local high school. The victim, according to police, reported that Malone began sexually assaulting her in the fall of 2014 while she was living at his residence in the unit block of Atherton Drive in Exton and attending Calvary. She was 18 at the time. The victim reported that Malone provided alcohol to her on two occasions, and that during one of those incidents, the victim alleged that she became highly intoxicated and was molested by Malone. Police said Calvary parishioners brought the victim forward when they found out a crime had occurred. They confronted Malone and terminated him from his position at the church
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