A youth pastor was arrested this week, accused of having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl in a Palm Harbor home. Scott Dewayne Wright, 35, who lives in New Port Richey, turned himself into Pinellas authorities Monday. He was charged with two counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor. Detectives say Wright met the teen in September 2006 when he was a youth pastor at Calvary Chapel in New Port Richey….
In 2005, Wright was featured in the St. Petersburg Times in a story about a weekly program for teens at Calvary Chapel. “We have a youth that is in crisis, and we need to reach out to them before it’s too late,” said Wright, who headed the program.
Criminal Court Judge Don Poole on Monday sentenced William T. Johnson to 17 years in prison in connection with a home invasion on 14th Street on Jan. 16, 2008…. The sentences are consecutive to another three-year term Johnson is facing in Georgia—making his total sentence 20 years.
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Prosecutor Williams said Johnson had testified that he was a youth minister at Orchard Knob Missionary Baptist Church by day and a drug dealer by night.
Tyson Abram, 44, called authorities at about 5:40 p.m. March 6 to report that bullets were ricocheting off a homemade range at City on the Hill church, located at Arapahoe Road and 75th Street in unincorporated Boulder County, according to a sheriff’s report released Tuesday…. When deputies arrived at the church, they found [Youth] Pastor David Vidal, 29, of Frederick, along with his children and Brendan Winans, 21, of Broomfield, shooting at a makeshift target behind the church.
They were firing a 9mm handgun, a .40-caliber handgun and a .22-caliber rifle, according to the report. A deputy noted “there was nothing behind the wooden stand or anything to stop the bullets.”
The youth minister for a township church stands accused in a federal complaint of downloading 134 images of child pornography to his personal computer.
Robert Kevin Carlino, no age available, of Dutch Mill Road is charged with knowingly receiving more than 10 graphic images of child pornography…. Carlino—who had been the paid youth minister for the Malaga Assembly of God—was arrested at his residence Friday by agents for the FBI…. Carlino is accused of downloading between Nov. 6 and 13 a computer folder containing 134 images of a girl engaged in “explicit sexual conduct with an adult male wearing only white socks,” according to an affidavit accompanying the arrest warrant for Carlino.
The child was known to be approximately 9 years of age at the time the photographs were taken, the affidavit said.
@47 COMTE, I resent your accusing me of “damning with faint praise.” After your tirades, ANYBODY who makes a point better than you-suck-lenny is a welcome breath of fresh air.
You’re really not that tough an act to follow.
All this “the burden is on Dan, blah-blah-blah” is bullshit, pure-and-simple, because – as I have to keep drumming into your apparently concrete-thick skull – that’s not the position he’s arguing; never has been, never will be, despite your incessant insistence that it is.
If you, on the other hand, want to provide evidence to support this argument that you yourself keep making, as I said before, nobody’s stopping you. In fact, I’ll tell you what, lenny nevermind. I’ll just go ahead and do the work you and your buddies seem unable (or unwilling) to do yourselves.
Google: teacher accused sexual relations with student
275,000 results 0.21 second search time.
Now, granted many of the fifty or so articles that top the results are duplicates, that is, multiple citations referring to the same person or incident (and somewhat surprisingly, about 2/3 of the most recent cases seem to involve female teachers and male students), but safe to say, in the past four months, there have been about a dozen cases of teacher-student sexual contact reported in the mainstream media across the US. From a cursory examination of these incidents, it appears all but one involved high school teachers, with one case involving a fifth grade teacher and her former student, aged 13.
Now, in roughly that same period of time (mid-December to-present), Dan has reported about 20 similar cases involving Youth Pastors (I’m not including the other non-sexual abuse incidents he’s also reported). So, on the surface it would appear that from an absolute numbers-of-incidents standpoint, YP pederasts lead teacher pederasts by about 20-12, which, on the surface at least doesn’t appear to be a significant difference. Since one of these involves an Australian, we’ll toss that for the sake of keeping this an All-USA competition, so the number is actually 19-12.
Now, since lenny & friends want us to consider ALL providers of child services, not just teachers, I’ve also searched for possible sexual assault incidents involving day-care, health-services, and child-protective service workers. Based on the available articles, I’ve found three reports of child sexual abuse citing day-care workers (in OR, MT, & TX) within this same four month period – all involving unlicensed day-cares, where no background checks were performed; so far as I am able to determine, there were no reported incidents of child sexual abuse involving health care or CPS workers within this same time period.
So, we now stand at 19 YP – 14 all others, getting close to parity, lenny.
But, of course, in order to be truly equitable, we need to view these numbers in relation to the total number of individuals in each category. According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research (hirr.hartsem.edu), there are approximately 124,210 Protestant congregationss in the United States with more than 100 members, that is large enough to employ at least one YP per congregation. Of those, a little over 19,000 have congregations of 500 or more, so assuming say one YP for every 100-500 members (which I consider this a purposely conservative estimate), that would make for a minimum of about 156,000 YP’s through out the United States. So, based on this admittedly unscientific estimate (but probably good enough for SLOG purposes – lenny if you think you can come up with better statistics, by all means have-at), this give us a percentage of YP’s who have been convicted of child sexual abuse in the past four months of 0.0001218, or say roughly 1 pederast for every 8,210 YP’s; pretty small, no doubt.
But, lenny wants us to compare this to the number of teachers, child-care, health-care and CPS workers, so let’s do that, shall we? According to the U.S. Census Bureau there are approximately 1,223,000 elementary and secondary school teachers in the U.S., or about about eight times as many teachers as YP’s. Also according the the Census Bureau there are approximately 4,100 licensed non-school daycare and nursery/preschool facilities in the U.S. We’ll again be conservative here and posit that each of these has no more than 2 workers per facility; that may be a tad low, but sufficient for this examination. So, we’ll call that 8,200 child care workers, added to our 1.223 mm school teachers for a running total of 1,231,200 – so far.
On to health-care providers. The National Association of Pediatrics, lists 60,000 members, a good start. The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners has a membership of 7,000 seems a little low, but we’ll combine those two numbers and add them in: so, now were up to 1,298,200.
Finally, we’ll throw in the number of CPS workers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, there are approximately 284,000 child, family, and school social workers employed in the United States. Sounds like a reasonable amount; in they go.
Final tally: 1,582,200 teachers, child-care, pediatric and child services providers. Again, this compares to a “mere” 156,000 Youth Pastors, or almost exactly a 10:1 ratio. So, if we were to take lenny & his friend’s assertion at face-value, that there are just as many pederasts among these professions as there are among YP’s it would be reasonable to expect to see incidents of child sexual abuse fall into roughly these same ratios, or 10 abuses in the former categories to every one in the latter. But, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as, so far as my minimal research has been able to determine, as even a casual dig through the available news articles shows more YP abusers in absolute numbers, even though they represent a grouping only 1/10th as large as our comparison group, where the abuse percentage is only 0.000009 or an incident rate of only 1 per 113,014 individuals as compared to the 1-in-8,210 ratio mentioned above.
So, how does all this pan out? Well, based on this rough analysis covering a four month period from mid-December 2008 to the present, it would appear that, when it comes to sexual abuse of kids, Youth Pastors completely blow past teachers, health-care workers, child-care workers, and social service workers combined by roughly 14-to-1 based on a per-capita ratio.
Now, granted, this is all seat-of-the-pants pencil-analysis, and probably wouldn’t stand up to the more rigorous statistical requirements of say, a Jonathan Golob, but, it’s definitely a damned sight better than anything you’re likely to get out of lenny & Co., so take that as you will.
Oops, I made a terrible mistake lenny. I only counted two of the non-licensed child-care abuse cases in my totals, so the absolute numbers should have been 19 YP abusers to 15 other abusers, not 14 as stated.
Meaning the abuse rate among the non-YP group is 1 per every 105,480 individuals, or a ratio of only 13-to-1, not 14-to-1.
I know that will make all the difference in the world.
@52 Holy shit, man… I’m only halfway through with that. I paid for the whole seat but I’m only using the edge right now.
Before I continue, let me just say that words fail me to express my admiration for this kind of research.
No sarcasm. I’m being serious here.
Comte, I owe you an apology. If I was pigheaded and “willfully obtuse,” please understand. I offer no excuse other than a hatred of divisive language. If I was ever just an outright dickhead, then please forgive me. I’d rather argue than attack but you DO have a talent for getting under people’s skin.
I could argue details of your analysis, but you’ve gone well beyond that kind of nitpicking and I won’t bother. You win. Here, I’ll say it again in all-caps. YOU WIN.
I really hope Dan or somebody reads this far down. Your “comment” is worthy of it’s own article. It’s more engaging and harder earned than a year of YPW posts. Most importantly (in my head), I can’t find your bias (well, other than just wanting to be right, but that’s human).
I have no crew or company of which you have accused me of masterminding. I’m just a guy conceding an argument. I can’t do that for anybody else.
Damn straight. I gave up a whole two hours of TV watching and Bejeweled playing to crib that together.
Apology accepted.
Lenny that’s only a small part of it. It’s also that religious people go around claiming that they own the very concept of morality. They contend that people of other beliefs, and atheists are either immoral, or if they do appear to be moral, it’s only because of their contact with people of the one true faith.
While others who work with children may molest, none of the groups to whom the molesters belong claim to be the only true moral people walking the face of the Earth.
You see, it’s not really about the child molesting in and of itself, as it is the hypocrisy, it reveals. Just as using the example of a pie makes a bigger point about mathematical fractions, the example of child molesting with among religious people makes a bigger point about religious hypocrisy. It’s about the fractions, not the pie.
@57
“You see, it’s not really about the child molesting in and of itself, as it is the hypocrisy”
Which is exactly the point.
Dan doesn’t give a shit about the welfare of children.
Here or on the “Every Child…”
Abused children are just raw material in Dan’s war on religion.
The more abused kids, the more horrific the abuse, the better Dan likes it.
58, So somehow Dan is responsible for these children being molested? Are you actually arguing that he arranges for youth pastors to molest children, so he can link to the news stories? Really? Exactly how is it his fault, that you say he is part of the problem?
52
Why only Protestant congregations?
And excluding under 100 member congregations eliminates a lot; there are about 300,000 congregations in the USA and each has several workers who could be considered ‘youth pastors’; a loose and poorly defined term- a congregation of 500 could easily have a staff of half a dozen.
A closer guesstimate would be more than 350,000 ‘youth pastors’.
And Dan reports cases from all over the world.
How many youth pastors in Australia, South America, Europe etc etc.
27
Are those apple pies kosher?
59
Because he is a hate mongering bigot who misrepresents the problem and makes finding a solution harder.
Has Dan’s misinformed divisive heated rhetoric on Proposition 8 brought us any closer to gay marriage? The opposite.
52
Dan reports youth pastors at all stages of the process; when allegations are made, when charges are filed, when a case gets to court, when a sentence is passed- the same guy could show up 5 or 6 times in Dan’s unscientific reports.
And looking at articles on google is a crummy way to gather statistics- government agencies will keep actual numbers.
Looking at articles may be slightly less inaccurate than pulling numbers straight from one’s ass but the difference is not statistically significant.
62, Could you explain how linking to news stories is makes it harder to find a solution? Can you, or anyone else in the world not think of a solution because Dan is clouding everyone’s heads with news story links? Really?
There are thousands of moral helpful workers associated with religious organizations for every criminal Dan dredges up. Dan does his best to obscure that fact and create hostility toward religion and religious organizations. Every one who is taken in by him (credulous slog asslickers) walks around with a distorted view of the world. Religion is part of the solution for most Americans. Dan portrays it as the problem. Dan is more incensed by what he percieves as hypocracy in the religious than by the abuse he features.
Really.
(I notice you avoided my question about Prop 8.)
So it’s up to Dan, and the people whom you refer to as “asslickers” (Is that really how religious people talk? ) with a distorted world view to find a solution to child molesting youth pastors over the people actually within religion?
I didn’t avoid it, it was off topic, but I will address it if you like. In 2000, a gay marriage ban passed by almost 23%, in 2008, it was down to 5%. We are much closer to gay marriage rights.
66
I never claimed to be a religious person.
The asslickers can do whatever they want, at present Dan is distorting and misrepresenting the situation and that make finding a solution more difficult.
Prop 8 was universally expected to fail, it passed and galvanized opponents of gay marriage. Even slog condemns Dan’s racist ranting in the aftermath as innacurate, unhelpful and divisive.
It is totally on topic- hate and misrepresentation make solutions harder to reach and drive people apart. Dan has a negative effect on whatever debate he barges in on- assholery is a great attention getter but isn’t constructive.
Are you religious or not? You did say you thought religion was part of the solution (solution for what?) for most people. Is it the solution for you, or just other people?
Again I’ll ask, how is what Dan is doing making it harder to find a solution to child molesting youth pastors?
Nobody is arguing that prop 8 didn’t pass, but it was much closer than 8 years ago. We are closer than we were in 2000 by a huge margin.
One need not be personally religious to recognize that religion has played and plays a positive role in many peoples’ lives.
Closer than 2000 doesn’t mean Dan isn’t setting progress back in 2009.
If you are not religious, why do you feel such a positive solution isn’t right for you? Why is it only right for others?
Do you have any data to show that Dan was personally the cause of prop 8 passing? How do you know he’s not the reason it was so much closer this time?
Again, how is YPW making more difficult to find a solution to youth pastor child molestation? Exactly what does the presents of this reoccurring Slog feature do to stop such a solution from being found?
Eeek, I can’t believe I typed presents when I meant presence.
@60:
I purposefully excluded Roman Catholic congregations from my analysis for two reasons: 1. Catholic churches, at least in my experience, do not employ “youth pastors” as such, since almost all religious education in Catholic parishes is handled directly by the clergy and the sisters, and; 2. I didn’t want the issue of priestly pederasty to unduly skew the numbers, creating an even larger disparity between incidents of religious and secular child sexual abuse, which its inclusion surely would have done. If I had added in the number of incidents of child sexual abuse attributed to Catholic priests in the U.S. during that same period of time to the number of YP cases, the overall numbers for child sexual abuse by religious authority figures would easily have doubled (a quick Google search brought up at least eight recent convictions this year alone, and that only required digging down four results pages), so I deliberately went conservative in order to at least try to keep the absolute numbers of abuse cases from both groups as balanced as I could.
I also purposefully excluded Protestant congregations of under 100, since it is my understanding these may generally be too small to employ a youth pastor. The general rule of thumb I came across during the course of my research was “one youth pastor for every 150 congregants”, so I deliberately left out the smaller congregations on the basis of this, since there simply was no way for me to make even an educated guess as to the actual number of YP’s that may have been employed in these smaller churches.
Even if we were to use your rather liberal estimate, which would essentially double the number of YP’s in the analysis, it would at best only halve the incident ratios: instead of 1 pederast for every 105,480 YP’s, the ratio would be roughly 1:50,000, thus making the ratio of YP abusers to all others about 7:1, which nevertheless still represents a significant disparity between the two groups, and is still more than sufficient to prove the point that the incident rates for child sexual abuse among YP’s is far higher per-capita than among the other groups lenny initially mentioned.
Also, please note that I did in fact exclude the one recent example of the Australian from my analysis; all other examples within the given date-range for both groups are from within the U.S.
@63:
I took this factor into consideration in my analysis. Each of the 19 YP’s cited were only mentioned once in Dan’s posts within the date ranges given, and I believe 17 of the 19 were actual convictions, while only two were arrests-on-suspicion, so even eliminating those wouldn’t have dramatically altered the results anyway.
And I believe I more than adequately qualified my analysis on the basis you cite. And in fact, as you can clearly see, I did use Government data for employment figures, when it was readily available.
Again, if you believe you can present a more thorough, more comprehensive analysis, you are free to do so. Until then, fuck off, because you aren’t bringing shit to the table.
73
And yet shit would trump this ‘research’
Talk is cheap @73: shit or get off the pot.
That is, @74 – you know who you are.
75 Talking to yourself is a bad sign
Pshaw, do it all the time…
@ 71 – I forgive you, my son. Do 10 Well-hello-Mary’s and 10 Oh-further’s
The Catholic church does have youth pastors. Some are priests, most have divinity degrees and are lay-ministers. Not that that would keep them from being pederasts…
I wonder what the preachings of these fine pastor people (as it relates to homosexuality) caught with their hands in pants (or skirts) not belonging to them. I bet you that they make quite a bit of noise about the gays….how bad it is for them to do the gay sex stuff..hmmmm….take this class to pray away the gay…..like ol Teddy and his fine looking bunch of associate pastors….like Rush talks about with the Prime Minister of England Gordon Brown….That gay stuff is bad cuz its in the bible that its bad….Look away from what I am doing….because I am a man of the Lord…..Gay Marriage will ruin the world.
How often does this happen…..Then…blame the gays for the breakdown of marriage and morality andy Brittany and K-Fed…Liza and David, Newt and his first wife—Newt and his second wife—-Newt and his third wife—oh now he’s Catholic….did the old annulment stuff happen for him….so he’s pure and just has one marriage.
My partner (DP’s) in Washington State have been together for almost 7 years…..living and leading a life of focus, volunteerism, community service and Love……Our commitment is pure and true and needs to be recognized by our government.
NO Youth pastor can minimize our LOVE or Commitment……Even though they try……The one man and one woman argument is so hollow and fake and ridiculous….What family are the values that many of the pastor people talking about….the ones for the first wife, second, third……more?????
I know Scott Wright personally. I was a member of his youth group since 2004. I know it looks bad but nobody knows the REAL story behind what’s going on. My mom worked with Scott, not at church. Scott use to work for a school, the same school my mother works at & my mom heard of the story before it ever went public. I want everyone reading to know that Scott may look guilty right now but if you knew him you would know you would know he’s a really GREAT and wonderful guy, not a perv at all. The news is making him look bad. Scott was a very good looking pastor back when he was at Calvary and it wouldn’t be an under statement to say that a lot of girls at the church were “crushing” on him. If you all knew the entire story you wouldn’t feel the way you feel. Trust me, Scott is a really nice guy & I don’t think he’s guilty. As for me, I am praying for him & for his wife and kids cause those kids are wonderful, all four of them. His wife rocks & is someone who can morally convict any woman. Please don’t judge this story without the details. I’m sure the other pastors have more detail behind their stories too that none of you know about. So instead of being quick to judge, pray! That’s what I’m doing.
@ 36 WRONG, Read my post about Scott. Scott is true blue just none of you know what’s REALLY going on. The girl is l y i n g!
http://badbadteacher.com/