Pennsylvania: founder and lead pastor convicted of indecent assault after using an offer to pray for an employee as pretext for assault
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Appellate history
-
Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the judgment of sentence on December 19, 2022.
Record class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
founder and lead pastor, Calvary Vision Church
Organization
Calvary Vision Church
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
M.K. first knew Haahs through his church's prayer meetings; the charged assault itself was initiated under the explicit pretext of pastoral prayer -- Haahs asked M.K. if he could pray for her, led her to a couch, hugged her while praying for her, and used that embrace to restrain her during the assault, making his pastoral role the direct operative mechanism of the assault rather than incidental background.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
- Sacred sex, purity, or sexual-energy claim
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2021-09-15 · jury verdict and sentence
Court of Common Pleas, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. A jury found Timothy H. Haahs, founder and lead pastor of Calvary Vision Church, guilty of indecent assault without consent for an assault on M.K., who first became acquainted with him through his church's monthly prayer meetings before working for his company. He was sentenced to one year of probation.
2022-12-19 · direct appeal, No. 2358 EDA 2021
Superior Court of Pennsylvania. Judgment of sentence affirmed.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- invoked his role as pastor, asking 'can I pray for her,' to obtain physical closeness before the assault
- used the prayer embrace to physically restrain the victim during the assault
- victim first knew him through his church's monthly prayer meetings before becoming his employee
Cited record
Sources
- official court judgment appellate judgment Commonwealth v. Haahs, 2022 PA Super 217 (Dec. 19, 2022).
Pennsylvania Superior Court opinion affirming Timothy Haahs's conviction for indecent assault, detailing how Haahs, founder and lead pastor of Calvary Vision Church, used an offer to pray for the victim as the means of physically restraining and assaulting her.
Source provenance
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- Source and tier basis
- https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2022/12/19/com._v._haahs_t..pdf Corpus classification: official-court-judgment; evidentiary role: appellate-judgment. SHA-256 eae3030b9e0ba6ed402d0f9ed87b9fb5807d2a6042455e2b646c1fbb67c0e5ce
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
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