ANOTHER ONE

Ex-California Church Staffer Is Second Arrested in Sex Abuse Scandal

A youth pastor has already been sentenced for sexual abuse at Faith Baptist Church.

A former staff member of a Wildomar, California, church was arrested for alleged sexual abuse, less than a year after a youth pastor at the same church was accused of molesting three girls. According to The San Bernardino Sun, Faith Baptist Church staff member Laverne Paul Fox was arrested on Monday in Pennsylvania and extradited to California before posting his $120,000 bail on Tuesday. In June, Fox was charged with three felony counts of child molestation involving a girl under 18 for allegedly abusing a girl in July 1990. He was reportedly the former principal at Faith Baptist Academy and the ex-bus director for the church. Fox’s alleged victim, Kathy Durbin, told the newspaper on Wednesday that she felt she was “getting justice 27 years late.” She said she reported the abuse to church pastor Bruce Goddard in 1992 but that it was never reported to the police.

The arrest comes months after former youth pastor Malo Victor Monteiro pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual abuse involving three teenage girls who were members of his church youth group. Monteiro was sentenced to five years in prison in November.