Watertown, SD, Pastor Arrested, Charged With Sex Crimes

ksfy ^ | 07.03.08 | Brian Allen

[Coleus]

A Watertown pastor suspected tonight of having sexual contact with a child. KSFY obtained these court documents which lays out the case against Dennis Hayes. In documents released by Watertown Police, we're told the suspected contact happened last Friday when Hayes took a juvenile boy he had been mentoring from the "Southwest Youth Services Center" in Magnolia, Minnesota to a library in Luverne, Minnesota.

The boy claims during the drive to Luverne, Hayes held his hand and told him he loved him. While at the Luverne library, he claims Hayes rubbed his back outside his shirt. During the drive back to Magnolia, he says hayes touched and rubbed his hand again.

And upon arriving in Magnolia, he claims Hayes slid his hand down into his pants and rubbed his buttocks. The boy told authorities this has been going on for a year. Hayes has told police he has patted and rubbed the boy in the past to calm him down, but then admitted he had placed his hand in the boys pants and touched his buttocks.

Hayes is a pastor at St. Martin's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Watertown he is now charged with three counts of sexual contact with a minor: In addition, Hayes was arrested today and charged with possession of child porn. He's free on his own recognizance tonight. I called Dennis Hayes house tonight: I wanted to ask him about these charges made against him. A female answered the phone and told me he could not talk about it.

[lupie]

Thers are no widespread, worldwide, corporate level Protestant Churches

Perhaps not worlwide, but there are several widespread church sytems with corportate hierarchy. I will take off the worldwide criterium. The others stand. And the articles you linked do not meet those. Not even close. They are of individual abusers. And some are not even Christian - like Jehovah Witness or Mormons. The only link that I saw that was even a little close as to the disgusting coverup of the hierarchy who moved the predators from church to church to protect the abusers at the expensive of the unsuspecting flock. No offense, but I am not going to go through all those links. I simply do not have the time. You did not seem to attempt to provide what I asked for, so the burden of proof is still on you if you also hold to what she does in that the Protestants have the same degree of corruption in these awful sexual predator scandals as the RCC. I will give you the same challenge, a little refined that I gave Judith Ann:

Can you please give facts, FR links and article links that show the widespread, all the way up the corporate level church system that covers up and protects the abusers for years and years and years, knowing what the abusers continue to do, and even moving them to new congregations, knowing that they will likely repeat the abuse, knowing that they are protecting the sinners and not the innocent flock? And can you provide that same information for those church systems that only acted to remove the abusers from the presence of children because they were "found out" and the masses starting getting upset? If you can show that on a widespread basis, as is clearly what happened in the RCC, THEN, and only THEN, can you rightly accuse the protties of doing the same thing.

If you can't, then please don't post these to me. I already know this goes on, as I said before. As long as we live in a fallen world, we will have wolves parading around in sheep's clothing and even as shepherds, no matter what denominational name is on the front of the church, if any. That is not the issue here, as I said above. The issue that sickens me most of all (and the abuse is disgusting in and of itself), the the worst is the cover up by those in authority who moved these priests around for years as they continue to abuse children time and time again. Those authoritative figures are worse sinners, if that were possible, than the abusers. Totally unbiblical behavior. That is the outrage against the RCC. They only put a band-aid on the first level of the problem.

[Marysecretary]

No, it doesn’t make it all right. I don’t care whether it’s a priest, a pastor, or the janitor. Nobody should get away with hurting a child like that, NOBODY.

[annalex]

If you don't want to read the lionks I gave you, don't waste my time asking for more.

I opened the Baptist one and of the 7 cases that fit on the first page, the following were re-hired as ministers or remained ministers:

Shiloh Baptist Church leaders had hired the Rev. Chavalis T. Williams in mid-March, even though they knew he had pleaded guilty in Florida to charges of child abuse and using children in a sexual performance

Fort Pierce, FL. Pastor Kenneth Johnson, recently convicted of having sex with a minor, and Friendship Missionary Baptist Church -- where he reportedly continues to minister -- were named in a sex-abuse lawsuit filed Tuesday

Little did Becky know that as a cleric at two previous churches -- one in Maryland and one in Orange County -- Martin had already been accused of sexually molesting at least three other girls, all 14. Little did she know the friendly, charismatic minister was taking the first steps that would culminate in his repeatedly raping the girl over the next two years