MARYLAND
Times-News
ERIC TUCKER Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A Las Vegas man has been charged in Maryland with molesting multiple boys in the 1980s while assisting with youth ministries at a church targeted in a child sex abuse lawsuit.
Nathaniel Morales, who had been working as a pastor in Nevada, is accused in an indictment of sexually abusing the boys when he worked with Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg. That church until December was associated with Sovereign Grace Ministries, a Kentucky-based evangelical church group accused in a lawsuit in Maryland last fall of covering up allegations of child sex abuse by its members. The lawsuit was amended last month to name Covenant Life Church as among the new defendants.
An indictment returned in December charged Morales, 55, with 10 counts of either sex abuse or sex offense and with committing sex acts against four boys between 1985 and 1990. Police said Morales helped with youth ministries during that time and also taught at a Christian school and hosted sleepovers.
Morales is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on Friday in Montgomery County Circuit Court. His lawyer did not return calls seeking comment and a telephone listing for Morales could not be found.
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