Ex-church leader gets 7 years for sex abuse of girl, 15, in Long Valley

NEW JERSEY
Daily Record

Peggy Wright, Daily Record

MORRISTOWN – Called “a beast” by his victim, a Long Valley resident who is a former youth group leader for a church in Pennsylvania was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for seducing a 15-year-old girl he had groomed to regard him as a father figure.

Christopher Remaly, a service manager in the automotive industry, was 27 when he sexually assaulted the girl at his home in the Long Valley section of Washington Township in 2014. The victim was from a single-parent family when she met Remaly through the Pennsylvania church, and she told Superior Court Judge Thomas Critchley Jr. on Friday that Remaly told her he loved her and took her virginity.

“He called me his daughter,” the victim said of Remaly, who is married and has two small daughters of his own. She vowed not to let the entanglement with Remaly define her but she said she went through a period of despair and feelings of worthlessness.

“He broke me, he manipulated me, and stole things from me that I will never get back,” the victim said. “You can’t allow this animal to hurt someone else.”

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