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Law enforcement officials
in Georgia and Virginia are investigating
a growing number of
complaints from young men who say they were sexually
molested as
minors by three Georgia evangelists.
Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jennie Montgomery of Roanoke, Va., said
Friday that five new
alleged victims have stepped forward since a federal
grand jury
there indicted the men last week. In Columbus, law
enforcement
officers involved in the case said they have
uncovered two more possible
victims.
"And we're looking for
more," said Ms. Montgomery, who is
prosecuting the case.
The
three ministers - Columbus television
evangelist Mario Ivan
"Tony" Leyva, his organist Rias Edward
Morriss, and Douglasville  minister
Freddie M. Herring
(also known as Freddie Harrington) - were indicted
April 22 and
charged with transporting at least three minors across
interstate
lines for the purpose of prostitution.
Leyva was charged with
four criminal counts, and Morriss and Herring
were each charged
with one. Leyva and Morriss were arraigned Monday in
Columbus.
Leyva also faces state charges of child molestation
in
Virginia.
Despite prostitution charges, Ms. Montgomery
described the case as
"just a typical child molestation case," in which
investigators are
expecting to turn up more victims.
According
to law enforcement officers, the evangelists shared the
teenagers
among themselves, taking them to religious crusades and
revivals
across the South to have illicit sex with them.
The sexual
activities listed in the indictment allegedly occurred
between
May 1983 and July 1987. Investigators said that although the
case
originated in Virginia, they believe most of the incidents
occurred in
Georgia, where Leyva, 41, moved around from Atlanta
to Douglasville to
Columbus. Leyva, an itinerant evangelist whose
preaching has taken him
across the South, Midwest and even into
Latin America, in recent months
has been based in Columbus,
coming there from Marietta. He was in Roanoke
preaching less than
two weeks ago.
Ms. Montgomery said the case first came to the
attention of the FBI
in Roanoke last summer. "They began
investigating and we got to a point
we thought we had enough to
indict," she said.
Law enforcement officials in both Columbus and
Roanoke described the
alleged victims as young men whose ages
ranged from 14 to 17 at the time
they were supposedly molested.
Most were called "troubled" youth from
poor or broken homes who
accompanied Leyva and performed various tasks,
such as putting up
revival tents.
A law enforcement official who is close to the
investigation but
asked not to be named, said that in Roanoke
Leyva sometimes rode around
in a chauffeured li mousine, offering
the young men gifts and trips they
could not otherwise
afford.
The official said in some cases, the alleged victims had
begun
attending Leyva's evangelistic sessions with their parents
when they were
6 or 7 years old, many years before they allegedly
engaged in sex with
him. "This was a man their family trusted,"
the official said. "And when
he offered to give them a job and
take them during the summer on these
trips, then Mom and Dad
thought this was great."
Ms. Montgomery said that under federal
law, she must convince the
jury that the three ministers engaged in prostitution.
"The prostitution
we're talking about is engaging in sexual
activity with those gentlemen
in exchange for room, board,
spending money, gratuities, that sort of
thing," she
said.
Prior to 1986, federal law did not cover child molestation, other
than through
prostitution, she said. Although the law was amended in
1986,
only one of the five counts in the indictment occurred after
the
new statute.
"We're just making it fit," she said. "So if
the jury doesn't
believe there was any prostitution, we lose,
even if they find
molestation."
Law enforcement
officials said Friday they will continue to
investigate a
possible ring in which Leyva or the other two transported
the
youths for other adults' sexual exploitation.
"Our evidence
doesn't show that they were supplying these kids to
other people,
but they were just using them themselves," said one
law
enforcement official."
Last four paragraphs
omitted.
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