
A Pennsylvania pastor faces charges he impregnated a 15-year-old girl from his youth group during a seven-month sexual relationship, according to reports.
The wife of Wesley Blackburn, youth pastor at Faith Brethren Bible Church, told the New Paris church’s head pastor he had confessed to the relationship and asked for a divorce, senior pastor Jim Espenshade told WJAC-TV on Wednesday.
Espenshade and other church leaders immediately fired Blackburn, a 35-year-old father of five, and alerted police last week. He was charged Oct. 6 on hundreds of counts of statutory sexual assault and indecent assault.
“I don’t know this man,” Espenshade, 35, told the TV station. “The man that got arrested, I don’t know him. I was shocked, absolutely shocked. You work with him and you’re there and you’re thinking, ‘How could this happen? How could he do this?’”
Blackburn told a state trooper who found him packing his belongings at the church that he started having sex with the girl in March, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown. He admitted he fathered the girl’s child, the affidavit showed.
Read more at NYdailynews.com
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