COMSTOCK PARK (MI)
WZZM - ABC 13 [Grand Rapids MI]
August 8, 2025
By Cali Lichter
Thomas Pinkerton was arrested and extradited to Maryland to face charges for child sex crimes. He used to be involved with a Comstock Park church.
COMSTOCK PARK, Mich. —
Editor’s note/content warning: This story contains detailed victim testimony of alleged sexual abuse of minors.
A former Michigan youth pastor and traveling evangelist has been charged with multiple counts of child sexual abuse stemming from allegations that he abused at least seven boys while serving at a Maryland church in the late 2010s.
Thomas “Tommy” Pinkerton, who also served as treasurer and associate pastor at a Comstock Park church, was arrested in Georgia last month and extradited to Maryland to face 20 felony charges including child abuse, sexual assault and sexual offense charges related to incidents that allegedly occurred between 2006 and 2010 when he was youth pastor at Central Christian Church in Baltimore County.
13 ON YOUR SIDE first learned about the allegations against Pinkerton in March of 2025 when Tory Grunwell, a member of New Chapel Church, reached out to us.
Grunwell started going to New Chapel Church in Comstock Park in 2020. She said she was close with the church’s lead pastor.
“I’ve always been able to reach out to them, you know, with concerns and that kind of stuff, until recently, and then, when I started making my concerns (about Pinkerton) known, they stopped responding to me,” she said in March 2025.
That’s when she came to 13 ON YOUR SIDE with her concerns about Pinkerton, who was also a pastor at the church.
She said Pinkerton was a youth leader and treasurer on the board for a very long time with the church.
“I mean, he’s, he’s been very active in our church as a youth pastor and being a traveling evangelist,” she said.
In a screenshot taken in March from the New Chapel website, it listed Pinkerton as the treasurer, evangelist and “A. Pastor.” His name is no longer on the website, and the messages he gave to the church have been removed from the website.
Grunwell said she had already been questioning the church for other reasons, and felt her relationship was already a bit strained with the church community.
She said she was talking with another person who was involved with the church, who assumed Grunwell knew about the allegations against Pinkerton.
Grunwell said she did not, and reached out to several leaders of the church, expressing her concerns about how the allegations that Pinkerton was under investigation in another state over sexual abuse of children were not made public to the congregation.
She said she received silence.
Until she got on a phone call with church leaders.
“And in that conversation, they told me it was true and that they just kept asking how I knew,” she said. “They wanted to know the people who told me and how this information got out.”
She said she was already uncomfortable with some of “Pastor Tommy’s” actions.
“This man was one of my son’s youth leaders, and went out of his way during services to point out my son and talk about how anointed he was, and the face of God is upon him, and all of these really faith-based things coming out of his mouth to my son,” she said.
She also claimed New Chapel would send messages to the kids letting them know Pinkerton was in town, which 13 ON YOUR SIDE was not able to verify.
“This man prayed over multiple people inside of our church. I mean, he was very involved in the spiritual movement at New Chapel, and it’s just been so uncomfortable to think about, you know.”
Grunwell said she begged church members to do something, to pressure New Chapel’s pastor into releasing a statement so that the parents of any children who had any kind of relationship with Pinkerton could talk to their kids.
After bringing up the allegations to other church members, she said she was blocked and cut off, and not allowed back to the church.
She claimed several members of the church, for whom she worked as a housekeeper, fired her.
She said she felt like everyone was keeping this a secret, something she couldn’t stand. She admitted to 13 ON YOUR SIDE in March that she did make messages quoting Bible scripture “about what the Bible says to do with people who commit crimes against these children, and it was about millstones.”
Grunwell has since pleaded guilty to a charge of misdemeanor malicious use of telecommunication services for sending a threatening message to New Chapel’s pastor.
However, she said that there are so many kids involved, and she feels everyone deserves answers.
“We could have bypassed all of this if the church would have just released a statement and said, ‘we’re finding out,’” she said. “’Talk to your kids, call the police if you have any concerns.’ That’s all anybody wanted.”
At the time, she said she was praying that what she claimed was the truth came out, “and that anybody who has been betrayed in this receives the answers that they deserve for our kids.”
She said there were too many questions because he was so involved in the church, but his information had been taken off their website and social media.
“I’ve never felt so betrayed by an organization that claims to be walking with Christ,” she said.
The week she found out, and came to 13 ON YOUR SIDE, she said, was emotional.
“But like, I’m a mother, and like, this is my job as a mom is to protect children,” she said. “It’s actually the church’s job, and they’re not doing it.”
She said coming to a news outlet was the last thing she wanted to do, but she wanted answers.
“This is my last step. It has to be because I don’t know where else to go,” she said. “You know, I know that the Lord gave me this voice for a reason and made me fearless so that I could stand up for our children and speak the truth no matter what. And I have the discernment to know when something is being hidden and when there’s lies.”
When 13 ON YOUR SIDE talked to Grunwell, she did not know what Pinkerton was being charged with, only that he was being investigated for alleged sex crimes against children.
13 ON YOUR SIDE has been looking into charges against Pinkerton for months, but was not able to find any charges until this week, when Pinkerton was officially charged.
“God’s grace and forgiveness is for everyone. But secrets aren’t forgiveness,” she said. “So the people who have been blinded by the extreme religion inside of this church, when the truth is revealed, I just pray that they pray too, and that there is no animosity, and that nobody is upset with me for bringing light into a dark place.”
ARREST
A warrant for Pinkerton’s arrest out of Baltimore County, MD, was issued on June 25. He was arrested in Georgia, where he currently lives, on July 16 for fugitive from justice on a felony charge and was extradited to Maryland on Aug. 6.
Pinkerton was charged with five counts of Second-Degree Child Abuse, five counts of Second-Degree Assault, five counts of Sexual Abuse of a Minor, three counts of Fourth-Degree Sexual Offense, and two counts of Third-Degree Sexual Offense.
In a statement to 13 ON YOUR SIDE on Friday, New Chapel said:
“We were heartbroken to hear of these serious allegations that occurred in Baltimore, Maryland, nearly 20 years ago, and communicated the situation to our church family after severing all ties with the accused several months back. Our prayers and continued cooperation are toward justice for the victims.”
Central Christian Church in Baltimore County, MD, where Pinkerton was a youth pastor when the alleged crimes occurred, released a statement on their website, which says in part:
“The matter became known after one of the alleged victims had the courage to step forward and report the abuse to law enforcement. Since then, additional individuals, some of whom were minors during the staff member’s tenure, have come forward with similar accounts. Allegations have also surfaced from individuals in other states after the staff member’s departure.”
The church says they are offering counseling and spiritual support to those impacted and says there is no place for abuse ever in the church.
INVESTIGATION
An investigation into sexual abuse allegations against Pinkerton out of Baltimore County, MD, started in October 2024, according to court documents obtained by 13 ON YOUR SIDE.
Detectives say seven men came forward to report Pinkerton’s abuse while he was the youth pastor at Central Christian Church between 2006-2010. Six of the instances occurred in Baltimore County, and one occurred in Georgia. Pinkerton was in his early to mid-30s at the time.
Baltimore County Detectives believe there may be more victims of Pinkerton’s abuse who have yet to come forward. Anyone with information is asked to call the Crimes Against Children Unit at 410-887-7720.
VICTIM 1
According to court documents, the first victim experienced abuse between 2007-2009, when the man was a minor.
The victim said he met Pinkerton at Central Christian, where he was the youth pastor at the time. He told detectives that Pinkerton had a group of boys who became known as “favorites.” The victim listed other known victims of Pinkerton’s as being a part of that group of “favorites.”
He said what Pinkerton did was a pattern of behavior with the group. The behaviors included contact in the open, which sometimes caused jealousy among the boys. The behavior allegedly included massages to the neck and back, hand holding and Pinkerton saying “I love you, son” so closely to the boy’s ear that Pinkerton’s lips touched.
The victim said Pinkerton would do this to the other boys in the group and around the other boys, in their view.
The victim was once driven to Pinkerton’s Maryland home, where they were alone. The victim alleged that Pinkerton placed his hand over the victim’s, then placed the victim’s hand onto the victim’s lap while they were on a sofa.
The victim also said that Pinkerton used his fingers and the victim’s hand to touch the victim’s genitals through his sweatpants for a few minutes, causing the victim to get aroused. The victim told detectives he felt uncomfortable because it was an older man who was making him feel that way, and he tried to get away from Pinkerton.
He said Pinkerton then lay behind the victim, in a position court documents describe as “spooning”, with his arm around the victim. The victim said he could feel Pinkerton was aroused. The victim then got up and went to the kitchen to get away from Pinkerton.
In a follow-up with detectives, the victim clarified that there were multiple times that Pinkerton touched his genitals, but “most of those times” were in a “joking manner” that the victim believed wasn’t sexual in nature. But the victim told detectives that the joking behavior normalized the genital contact and led to what later occurred on the sofa.
He said the joking contact happened at various locations, but the only overtly sexual, intimate incident was the one on the couch at Pinkerton’s home.
VICTIM 2
According to court documents, the second victim said he experienced abuse for three months in 2007, when the man was a minor.
He said he also met Pinkerton when he was the youth pastor at Central Christian Assembly. The victim said Pinkerton was “the new, exciting youth pastor that everyone was looking forward to getting to know.”
The victim told detectives that Pinkerton told him he was the first teenager Pinkerton wanted to “speak into” to be a leader to him and be a “father figure in a spiritual way”. The victim also referred to Pinkerton as a “spiritual father.”
He told detectives that at the time, Pinkerton was a father figure to him, and they spent time together multiple times a week.
About a year after meeting Pinkerton, in 2006, the victim noticed that when the youth group would go on missions out of state, Pinkerton would have boys sleep with him in his bed while his wife was staying elsewhere with other girls.
He told detectives this was the first time he started suspecting something.
On one trip, the victim said he slept next to Pinkerton, but nothing happened. But he also noticed on the trips, Pinkerton would disappear with boys, and no one would be able to get a hold of him.
The victim also spent time at Pinkerton’s house and met his best friend, whom Pinkerton would greet by kissing him on the lips.
The victim told detectives he would comment on the two men kissing each other, and they would tell him “that is how Jesus greeted his disciples” and referred to it as a “brotherly kiss”, but to the victim it seemed more intimate.
During the summer of 2007, the victim said Pinkerton made a few moves on him. He explained to detectives that Pinkerton liked to give people hugs, and he liked to wrestle and do physical things and give massages to the boys, never to girls. He said Pinkerton sought out the “good-looking, popular boys” to befriend.
The court docs go on to say the victim had once gone to Pinkerton’s house while his wife and kids were not home to watch a movie. The victim told detectives, “out of nowhere,” Pinkerton started to rub his leg with his hand.
He said Pinkerton rubbed his leg and moved his hand upward until his hand was directly over the victim’s genitals, over clothing, and resting it there for a few seconds. The victim moved away because he was uncomfortable, but then he said Pinkerton kissed him on the lips for several seconds. The victim described it as “full-blown, juicy type of kiss, really disgusting … sexual kiss.”
Then, the victim said, Pinkerton suggested they go upstairs to the guest bedroom. The victim said he was at his wit’s end, but he didn’t know what to do, so he went upstairs.
Pinkerton allegedly asked the victim if he wanted a massage, and he agreed. He said Pinkerton then had him lie face down on the bed in the guest bedroom.
The victim said that from there, Pinkerton sat on top of him and immediately began massaging his backside. The victim pushed Pinkerton off and left his house.
He told detectives Pinkerton had given him massages before on his back or shoulders while they were sitting upright on the couch.
VICTIM 3
According to court documents, the third victim was abused between 2006 and 2010, when the victim was a minor.
He also met Pinkerton when he was the youth pastor at Central Christian Assembly. The victim described Pinkerton as “charismatic and magnetic.” He also said that Pinkerton had “favorites” in the youth group and described them as “typically athletic, good-looking, popular males, not females.” He said Pinkerton would invest more time, attention and even money into his “favorites.” He also said that Pinkerton was a “touchy-feely” guy who liked to hug and give massages. He said Pinkerton would be very affirming, telling [the victim] how special he was.”
The victim explained to detectives that Pinkerton asked him to join the youth group, and the victim became “enamored” with Pinkerton’s preaching, and he got more involved.
Eventually, the victim said he and Pinkerton spent more time together, doing activities. The victim said he would even spend the night once every other week, along with spending time together two to three times a week. He said he would sleep in the guest bedroom at Pinkerton’s home.
The victim was home-schooled and said that made it easy to spend time with Pinkerton during the day.
The victim said the physical contact was “innocent at first and that Pinkerton was affectionate.”
He told detectives the contact started as just hugs, which progressed to massages, often with their shirts off. This occurred in the bed in the guest bedroom, where Pinkerton would be every night the victim spent the night, according to the court docs.
“Pinkerton would get into bed with [the victim] and rub his legs and chest. Sometimes when Pinkerton was rubbing [the victim] ‘s legs, he would rub his hand over [the victim]’s genitalia […], over [the victim]’s clothing,” the court document reads. It goes on to say he would sometimes let his hand linger there.
The victim said this happened every time he spent the night.
The victim explained that he got good at pretending to be asleep because Pinkerton would leave if he thought the victim was sleeping.
The court docs say the abuse occurred weekly from 2006 until 2010 when Pinkerton left the church.
When Pinkerton would drive the victim somewhere, the victim said they would hold hands, or Pinkerton would place his hand on the victim’s leg. Eventually, the court docs read, he also began kissing the victim on the cheek, then on the mouth.
“[The victim] later explained that Pinkerton said the kisses on the mouth were to greet him with a ‘heavenly kiss’ and that this was how Jesus would greet his disciples. [The victim] said that the kisses made him feel uncomfortable and sick,” the court documents say.
The detective said the victim used the terms “spiritual son” and “spiritual father”, describing the relationship like a father/son.
The victim told detectives Pinkerton would wrestle with him, bring him to the movies, and pay for everything. He said Pinkerton was like a “sugar-daddy.”
VICTIM 4
According to court documents, the fourth victim was abused between 2008 and 2010, when the victim was a minor and 18.
The victim told detectives he met Pinkerton in the fall of 2007 when he was the youth pastor at Central Christian Academy. Eventually, the victim said he became a mentor and like an uncle, “funny and charismatic and he was able to relate to the youth.”
According to court documents, the victim “noticed that Pinkerton gravitated to the athletic males and that he did not like the boys being around girls. Pinkerton had his ‘favorites,’ and he would say, ‘favorite ain’t fair.’”
At Pinkerton’s house, the victim said he would receive massages over his clothing on his legs and eventually on his back.
“Initially, the massages seemed ok, but then progressed,” said the victim, according to court documents.
Pinkerton would allegedly make comments about the victim’s shirt being tight. The victim said there would also be massages skin to skin, or just in the victim’s underwear.
During one of the massages, when the victim was a minor, the victim said Pinkerton was massaging his legs and continued up toward his genitals, where he touched them over clothing and skin to skin.
The victim described these touches as being like a masseuse.
The victim said Pinkerton also used his hands to massage the victim’s backside on one occasion before the victim stopped him.
Detectives say these instances occurred more than 10 times over the nearly two-year span.
Once or twice, Pinkerton tried to force the victim sexually, the court docs say.
These incidents allegedly happened at Pinkerton’s house when the victim was a minor. The court docs say the victim was naked during the incidents, which started as massages and then escalated.
“This occurred on one or two separate occasions. Pinkerton told him that his couldn’t tell anyone because it would destroy everything, and [the victim] took that to mean that [the victim] would be exposed too,” read court documents.
The victim also explained to detectives that toward the end of the abuse, Pinkerton would hug and kiss him as well.
The victim described the kisses on the lips “in an intimate, romantic manner, but not with his tongue. Pinkerton would use his hands to touch [the victim]’s face and pull him into a kiss.”
The victim said it crossed his mind that Pinkerton may be attracted to men based on the kiss, because it was not like a father/son kiss.
“Pinkerton told [the victim] that ‘he likes to lay hands on people this way’ and that he has done it to multiple people, like it was a normal thing. Pinkerton also told [the victim] that this was between them, not to tell anyone and that it could destroy Pinkerton. [The victim] explained that if this had been an ordinary person, who wasn’t ‘with Christ,’ it would have been wrong, but he had trust in Pinkerton as a mentor and as a man of God,” according to court docs.
VICTIM 5
According to court documents, the fifth victim was abused for four months in 2007, when the victim was 19.
The victim said he had known Pinkerton for about five years when he was younger, because Pinkerton was a friend of his parents in another state.
The victim eventually moved in with the Pinkertons after they moved to Maryland, where Pinkerton was a youth pastor. The victim was assisting Pinkerton. He said he stayed in the guest bedroom.
It was during this time that the victim said Pinkerton tried to sexually assault him.
The victim told the detective, “he didn’t know it was happening at the time but, Pinkerton wanted to be [the victim]’s spiritual leader and ‘spiritual father.’ Pinkerton wanted to show [the victim] intimacy and had him strip down to his underwear and massage [the victim], as a gesture of ‘serving’ [the victim].”
It made him feel weird, but he told detectives he went along with it. During a few of the massages, the victim said Pinkerton reached inside his underwear and touched his genitals, but the victim pushed his hand away.
During another massage, the victim said Pinkerton sexually assaulted him.
The victim said that Pinkerton was “all about” relationships between boys and expressed this by kissing on the mouth. The victim said Pinkerton would grab the victim by the head and just kiss him on the mouth.
“Pinkerton made a comment along the lines of the Spartans making love to other men to create a strong bond and to make sure they were protected. [The victim] realized Pinkerton’s grooming, saying ‘that is such a … groomer thing to say,'” the court documents said.
When the victim talked about girls and relationships, the victim recalled Pinkerton saying that he would kiss him, with the victim inferring that Pinkerton was offering to replace the relationship he was seeking with a girl.
The victim also said Pinkerton would wrestle with boys in a group setting, and he would claim to massage “all kinds of guys” to normalize the behavior.
The victim observed that Pinkerton “gravitated toward the good-looking, athletic boys. [He] noticed that Pinkerton never sought out interactions with girls,” according to court documents.
VICTIM 6
According to court documents, the sixth victim was abused between 2006 and 2010, when the victim was a minor.
The victim said he met Pinkerton when he was the youth pastor.
He said Pinkerton was “outgoing and old school” and a “masculine leadership personality.” He also described Pinkerton as being “the center of the popular social clique within the youth group.”
He also told detectives Pinkerton had “favorites” in the youth group that he treated preferentially, but never girls.
The victim told detectives that the “favorites” would sit closer to Pinkerton, ride with him to church events in the church van, and spend more time with him.
The victim also confirmed that Pinkerton tried to foster a spiritual father/son relationship with the boys.
“Pinkerton was against the youth dating while in the youth group, particularly among the favorites and the leaders of the youth group,” he said.
As time went on, the victim said he began spending more time with Pinkerton. He said physical contact between him and Pinkerton was normal, according to the court documents.
The victim said he would arrive early to help the youth group set up. On one occasion, he told detectives that Pinkerton asked him to come to his office, where they spoke and hugged. However, the victim said the hug had felt different than others and had lasted longer.
He said Pinkerton then kissed him on the mouth, which he described as feeling like a “romantic” kiss.
“Pinkerton explained to Victim #6 that this was how men greeted in his family and that it was a brotherly kiss,” read court documents.
The kissing happened more than once, according to court documents. The victim said he remembered Pinkerton telling him about a passage in the Bible that mentioned greeting with a brotherly kiss. He said Pinkerton justified this as nothing homosexual, as it was coming from a place of love.
“Pinkerton would also describe to [the victim] a relationship like father/son, mentor/student/disciple, and religiously like a ‘spiritual father.’ Pinkerton would use these terms with all of his ‘favorites,’” the court documents said.
After the kisses on the victim’s mouth, he said Pinkerton would allegedly brush his hand over the victim’s genitalia “intentionally and deliberately.” This did not happen after every kiss.
The touches made the victim feel “gross” and “weird,” and he explained that the contact was unwanted.
The victim began pulling away from the youth group to pursue other interests, school and work.
At this time, there are no charges against Pinkerton in Michigan or any known victims. Again, anyone with information is asked to call the Crimes Against Children Unit at 410-887-7720.
Author: Cali Lichter