By Jason Kuiper
World-Herald
August 21, 2009
http://www.omaha.com/article/20090821/NEWS01/708219862
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| Efrain Umana |
A Lincoln pastor already facing sex abuse charges in Council Bluffs has been charged in Omaha with first-degree sexual assault on a child.
Efrain Umana Sr., 54, a pastor who served congregations in Council Bluffs and Lincoln, has pleaded not guilty to sex abuse charges in Iowa.
The new charge against Umana alleges he sexually assaulted a young girl four times between February 2004 and May 2004. The girl's father found out about the abuse earlier this year and contacted Omaha police, according to the police report. The girl is now 17 and lives in Texas.
The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office arrested Umana on Thursday on a warrant from Omaha, and he is being held in the Douglas County Jail.
He was charged in June in Pottawattamie County with sexually assaulting a 10- or 11-year-old girl parishioner in 2003, forcing an adult woman parishioner to have sex with him in 2007 and assaulting two other women with the intent to commit sexual abuse in 2008.
He is accused of assaulting them while serving as pastor at Templo Monte Horeb in Council Bluffs, which he left about 11 months ago amid allegations of misconduct.
Female parishioners at another church also had accused Umana of impropriety. Umana had been pastor at an Assemblies of God church in Lincoln called Efesios 2:20 until the church's Midwest Latin American District Council dismissed him.
His dismissal resulted in part from a report by a 17-year-old parishioner that she'd had a physical relationship with him. She later sued and said the case was settled out of court for $18,000.
After Umana left, he opened a church called Iglesia Templo Pentecostal El Nuevo Nacimiento in Lincoln. That year, the presbyter of his former church's East Nebraska Section, Saul Garcia, signed a letter sent to Attorney General Jon Bruning. The letter, sent in 2003 and confirmed as received by the office, reported that Umana and his congregation had separated from the Midwest Latin American District of the Assemblies of God of their own accord.
Contact the writer: 44-1279, jason.kuiper@owh.com
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