NEW YORK
WGRZ
ALBION, NY– Jurors in Orleans County are back to deliberating the fate of a pastor accused of molesting children.
The jury was charged on Friday and deliberated for 4-1/2 hours Friday without reaching a verdict.
Roy Harriger, 71, most recently the pastor of a Niagara county church, is accused of molesting three of his grandchildren when they were little kids. THis happened more than 12 years ago when he was a pastor of a church in Lyndonville in Orleans County.
All three of those grandkids testified at the trial.
Jurors had asked to have read back to them the testimony of three witnesses that include one of those grandkids, as well as Harriger’s daughter Joy who is the only one of Harriger’s five grown children to still stand by him while the other four are among the ranks of his accusers.
A problem occurred on Monday morning when jurors asked for some testimony to be read back. It was discovered that the laptop belonging to the court reporter was damaged over the weekend when a pipe in the courthouse burst. Officials consulted an IT professional to see if the data can be recovered. Efforts are being made to print out trial testimony.
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