December 10, 2004

New Jersey Pastor No Longer Missing

CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant

December 10, 2004
By BILL SWAYZE, Newark Star-Ledger

A pastor of a New Jersey church who has been missing for a month has turned up in a Connecticut jail on multiple sex assault charges, shocking parishioners who say they had been told he was away on family business.

Andre McGuire, the 46-year-old pastor of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Dover, remains behind bars in Hartford, with bail set at $250,000, after Connecticut State Police charged him with four counts of third-degree sexual assault, according to an arrest warrant in Superior Court and court officials.

McGuire, according to court papers, forced a young woman to have sex with him on several occasions between November 2001 and March 2002 at motels along I-84 in Connecticut during trips to and from the woman's college. She was 18 at the time of the first incident.

New Jersey authorities alerted Connecticut's state police about the case, stating the woman had told authorities "he raped and sexually assaulted her on numerous occasions," according to the arrest warrant. He told investigators, "I had a relationship with [the victim] that was not forced," according to the arrest warrant.

Posted by kshaw at December 10, 2004 03:35 PM