US: ‘Ex-gay’ pastor accused of sexually assaulting teenage boy
An ‘ex-gay’ pastor has been arrested over accusations that he sexually assaulted a teenage boy.
Duane Youngblood, who is a pastor at the Higher Call World Outreach Church in Pittsburgh, in 2006 wrote a book titled: “Freedom From Homosexuality: No Longer Living The Lie”
However, according to CBS, he has been arrested, after allegedly assaulting a teenage boy dozens of times between 2009 and 2011.
The victim, who is now 21, told police he was assaulted over a period of two and a half years, while Youngblood was supposed to be counselling him in the church.
According to the complaint, during the victim’s first counselling session, when he was 16, Youngblood took him to a back room and asked him to pull his trousers down, before touching him inappropriately.
Across 30 to 40 counselling sessions, the victim claims that abuse took place in around 25 of them.
The complaint says that after one incident, Youngblood told the victim: “We are not going to speak about this.”
The complaint also says that Youngblood showed a pornographic video to the victim on his computer, and asked him if he liked it.
Youngblood was previously sentenced to one year of intermediate punishment and seven years’ probation in 2006, after he was accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy.
