NEBRASKA
Star Herald
Posted: Friday, August 9, 2013
By KIM SCHMIDT World-Herald News Service
KEARNEY — A Kearney man is free on bond after being charged with sexually assaulting two boys 12 years ago.
Thomas Anthony Jones, 37, is charged in Buffalo County Court with two counts of felony sexual assault of a child on Jan. 1, 2001, in Kearney.
According to court records, the alleged victims, now ages 23 and 15, reported that their former church youth leader, Jones, allegedly exposed himself to them and touched their private parts. The alleged victims — who would have been 11 and 3 at the time of the alleged assault — reported the abuse Tuesday.
Jones was a youth leader at Lighthouse Foursquare Church at 3520 Ave. F.
Benjamin Rosenzweig, the church’s pastor, said Jones hasn’t been a youth leader for several years, and when he was, it was as a volunteer.
A Kearney Police Department report listed Jones as a youth pastor, but he never had that position, Rosenzweig said. The title of pastor requires licensing, he said, which Jones never obtained.
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