Authorities: Administrator, wife stole $1.2M from church | WJAC

Authorities say a western Pennsylvania church administrator stole $1.2 million that he and his wife used to pay for vacations, sports tickets and other personal expenses. 

The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office says 50-year-old David Reiter, of South Park, is charged with theft, forgery and receiving stolen property. His 44-year-old wife, Connie Reiter, faces two counts of receiving stolen property.

Authorities say the money was stolen from the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair over the course of about 17 years.

Authorities: Administrator, wife stole $1.2M from church | WJAC:

Defense seeks to have 50 charges related to alleged sexual abuse of children dropped - Bluefield Daily Telegraph: News

http://www.bdtonline.com/news/youth-volunteer-indicted-for-alleged-abuse/article_12b87cfc-b269-11e4-ac43-471231ab2671.html
 
Did a pastor’s disclosure to police about reported sexual acts by a church elder on young boys violate the priest-penitent privilege, or was he simply following the state’s mandatory reporting law?

That is the question being argued in pre-trial motions filed in the Timothy Probert case.


Probert, 57, of Mercer County, is facing 50 charges related to alleged sexual abuse of children stemming from his time spent as a volunteer at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bluefield and for the Working to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect (WE CAN) program.

In a pre-trial motion filed in the case, Probert’s counsel is seeking to have the charges dismissed on the basis that his pastor, Jonathan Rockness, violated the priest-penitent privilege when he told a West Virginia State Police investigator about disclosures involving Probert’s actions with young boys.

In the state’s objection to the motion, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kelli Harshbarger states Rockness and church elders were following mandatory reporting laws in order to protect children who were facing “a clear and present danger of being abused.”
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"The disclosure made by Tim Probert to his pastor did not relate to any ongoing sexual molestation of a child,” the defense motion states. “Tim Probert made confessions of personal misconduct with respect to teenage boys, in many cases, thirty years in the past. The subjects of the confessions made by Tim Probert are in their early forties and thirties now. Some are in their 20s. None of the disclosures or confessions made by Tim Probert to his pastor relate to a child or a child who is currently being abused at the time of Tim Probert’s confessions to his pastor.”

The defense argues that the confessions made by Probert to Rockness were communications in “confidential meetings and discussions.”

“Mr. Probert was seeking forgiveness and restoration through the disciplinary channels of his church for acts of misconduct that occurred in many cases decades earlier,” the defense motion states. “This circumstance simply does not fit the criteria established by the Legislature to justify overriding the penitent’s confession to his pastor.”

Defense seeks to have 50 charges related to alleged sexual abuse of children dropped - Bluefield Daily Telegraph: News

See also:  Youth volunteer indicted for alleged abuse for the original reporting

Senior Pastor of NC Megachurch Falls Into Adultery; Heading for Divorce After Just 9 Months on Job

Congregants of North Carolina's popular Westminster Presbyterian Church were shocked to learn two weeks ago that their new pastor, the Rev. Reggie Weaver and his wife, Ashley-Anne Masters, are getting ready to divorce because he had been cheating on her with another woman in the nine months he has been head of the 2,000-member congregation.

The news also came as a shock to many others in Presbyterian circles where Weaver was seen as a rising star, according to a News & Record report.

Weaver made the revelation in an apology letter to members of his congregation highlighting that his mistress was not a member of his congregation and that he and Ashley-Anne have already started the divorce process.

"I have violated my ordination vows and my wedding vows," the 33-year-old Weaver confessed in the letter, which was mailed to the congregation on Friday by the Salem Presbytery, the regional governing body for local Presbyterian (U.S.A.) churches. "I am sorry and I ask your forgiveness."

Senior Pastor of NC Megachurch Falls Into Adultery; Heading for Divorce After Just 9 Months on Job