CALIFORNIA
SFGate
By Kimberly Veklerov Updated Tuesday, April 26, 2016
An East Bay minister has been charged with 23 counts of sexually abusing a teenage parishioner over a three-year period.
The Contra Costa County district attorney’s office charged Fernando Maldonado, a 32-year-old Concord resident, on Monday with 12 counts of lewd acts with a minor, 10 counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and one count of sodomy of a minor.
The alleged abuse occurred from September 2012 to mid-2015 and involved one victim at the two churches in which Maldonado presided as a minister, said Sgt. Dave Mathers, a detective in the Martinez Police Department. The churches were Morello Avenue Baptist Church in Martinez and the Grace Bible Church of Pleasant Hill, where church leaders and congregants, including the alleged victim, moved after the church in Martinez closed, Mathers said.
Authorities have been conducting interviews to determine whether there were additional victims, said Paul Graves, deputy district attorney of Contra Costa County and the prosecutor for the case.
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