MARYLAND
Associated Baptist Press
By Bob Allen
Thursday’s conviction of a former youth leader at a church in Maryland has renewed calls that evangelical leaders cease promoting a ministry colleague accused in a class-action lawsuit of conspiring to cover up sexual and physical abuse of children.
Nathaniel Morales, 56, who most recently served as a pastor in Las Vegas, was convicted of three counts of sexual abuse of a minor and two counts of sexual offense by a jury in Montgomery County, Md. He will be sentenced Aug. 14 and faces up to 85 years in prison.
Morales was found guilty of abusing three boys from 1983 to 1991 while working with youth ministries and conducting Bible studies for Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md. Other charges are pending.
During the trial, longtime executive pastor Grant Layman testified that he should have reported alleged abuse to police in 1992 but did not. Morales left shortly thereafter and ended up in Nevada, where he married a woman with five sons from a previous relationship. After his arrest, the woman filed for divorce, and now says she believes her ex-husband may have harmed other children after leaving Maryland.
“I think we’ve come to realize that’s not the right way to deal with these matters,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy told ABC affiliate WJLA television in Arlington, Va.
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