December 12, 2004

Dover pastor accused of rape

DOVER (NJ)
Home News Tribune

By ABBOTT KOLOFF
GANNETT NEW JERSEY

The case of a Baptist pastor from Dover accused of repeated sexual assaults against a young woman in Connecticut was moved Friday to a court that handles the most serious felony cases, court officials said.

Andre L. McGuire, 46, whose family lives in Rahway and who is pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, is married and has six children. He has been charged with four counts of sexual assault in Connecticut and has been held for more than a month in a Hartford correctional facility on $250,000 bail.

He was arrested on Nov. 8 after an investigation that lasted more than two years.

Members of his church said that up until this past week they were told he was away handling a family emergency.

Court records, which include statements by the alleged victim, detail some of the allegations and show the alleged victim first talked to law enforcement authorities more than two years ago, after she told some family members about her allegations and wrote a letter to administrators of the college che was attending at the time to explain why she was having a hard time keeping up her grades. She told them she had been raped.

McGuire, who had been living with his family in Rahway before his arrest, was accused in court papers of forcing himself sexually on the girl at various places in three states in 2001 and 2002.

Posted by kshaw at December 12, 2004 08:49 AM