FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel
By Tonya Alanez
Sun Sentinel
He was only 7 and he knew it was wrong, yet he said nothing. And it went on for nine confusing years: sexual victimization at the hands of his trusted youth pastor.
The man, now 20, recounted his story to jurors Thursday in a Fort Lauderdale federal coutroom.
“Something told me it wasn’t right, and I still laid there anyways. I didn’t know whether to say something or get up,” said the man, whom the Sun Sentinel is not identifying. “I knew it was going too far.”
The alleged victim was the first witness to take the stand in the federal trial against Jeffery London, 51, former youth pastor at Bible Church of God in Fort Lauderdale and dean of students at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes.
London, who also worked at a Boys & Girls Club in Broward County in the 1990s, was acquitted in state court last year on 27 charges that he sexually abused four at-risk boys who lived at his unlicensed foster home, London’s Hotel.
London now faces a lone federal charge of using a cellphone to lure one of those boys, a distant relative, into sexual activity. He has pleaded not guilty and faces 10 years to life in prison if convicted.
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