Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Newburgh, New York, USA · 2010

United States (2010): youth pastor's convictions for abusing three Sunday-school boys affirmed

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

youth pastor at the Church of God in Newburgh, Sunday school teacher

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

The opinion states the defendant was 'a youth pastor at the Church of God in Newburgh' who 'was accused of sexually abusing three boys who were students in the Sunday school class that he taught' — the church teaching role is the charged mechanism, not background context.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2015-04-15 · conviction affirmed

    Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Department (People v Cruz, 2015 NY Slip Op 03178). Humberto Cruz, a youth pastor at the Church of God in Newburgh, was convicted following a jury verdict of course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, sexual abuse in the second degree, and endangering the welfare of a child (seven counts), for abusing three boys who were students in the Sunday school class he taught during the summer of 2005. The Appellate Division affirmed the judgment of conviction and held the evidence legally sufficient and the verdict not against the weight of the evidence.

Appellate history

  1. 2015

    Affirmed (2015 NY Slip Op 03178, 127 A.D.3d 985).

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • pastoral and teaching authority over boys enrolled in his Sunday school class

Primary record

Sources

official court judgment appellate judgment People v Cruz, 127 A.D.3d 985, 2015 NY Slip Op 03178 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 2015).

The appellate opinion, retrieved via the CourtListener public CDN.

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