By Jason Whong
Ithaca Journal
December 10, 2011
http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20111209/NEWS01/112090379/Schuyler-County-man-accused-using-morbid-religious-themes-sexual-abuse-boys?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Local%20News
A Town of Dix man, now in federal custody, used religious and morbid themes in the sexual abuse of several boys he met through his church, according to a document in U.S. District Court in Rochester.
The 10-page criminal complaint against Daryl E. Vonneida, 61, of Price Road, charges him with using a minor to make child pornography. The complaint is signed by Special Agent Kenneth Jensen of the Elmira office of the FBI.
The complaint does not identify Vonneida's church, but state police in Horseheads said Vonneida attended His Tabernacle Family Church in Horseheads.
 |
| Daryl E. Vonneida |
That church has strict rules in place to protect children, and Vonneida was never alone with children at the church, Pastor Micheal Spencer said after Vonneida's arrest in September.
The complaint document describes several instances of abuse. It does not allege that the abuse happened on church grounds.
The complaint said some of the abuse occurred during trips to places including a Major League ballpark, an amusement park and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The complaint did not say why Vonneida accompanied the victims on those trips.
Spencer said Friday that those trips were not church-sponsored. Church trips would be subject to the same rules in place at the church, he said.
"We can't control what people do on their personal lives ... outside of the building," Spencer said.
In the complaint, Jensen said the child pornography charge is based on the following facts:
Jensen began working on the case Sept. 12 after he was contacted by the Tioga County, N.Y., Sheriff's Office.
Two victims, brothers who spoke to investigators in September, said they were sexually abused by Vonneida, who they met through their church.
"When the abuse first began, Vonneida told them that the abuse was necessary to allow Vonneida to process the sexual abuse he had experienced as a child," Jensen wrote.
One of the victims, identified as "Victim 1," said Vonneida asked him and his brother to "to pose like Jesus on the cross, only in tight white underwear," Jensen wrote. Vonneida told them that the pictures were for church, and showed them a photo of two young boys also posing in the same way, Jensen wrote.
Though the faces of the boys in the picture were not visible, Victim 1 thought they were sons of another family they knew through their church.
As the abuse continued, Vonneida forced the brothers to act out death scenes and sexually abused them as they were "playing dead," Jensen wrote.
Vonneida made videos and photos of the abuse, in which the boys pretended to be killed by being strangled with a rope or by hand, stabbed with a dagger, shot with a pistol that shoots plastic BBs, or smothered with a pillow, while they wore tight white underwear, Jensen wrote.
Victim 1 described one of the abuse sessions, which happened in 2009 during a trip to an amusement park out of state.
The boy said after he and his brother were forced to pretend to die, Vonneida pulled the boys' underwear down to the top of their genitals and directed them to touch themselves, Jensen wrote.
Vonneida confessed to making videos and photos of the brothers wearing only underwear and recording death scenes, Jensen wrote.
He also confessed to abusing the brothers while they were asleep and to making recordings of and abusing the two children that Victim 1 recognized in the photo, Jensen wrote.
Jensen said he viewed a DVD of the abuse of Victim 1 and his brother and a videotape of the abuse of the two other victims.
A member of Vonneida's church identified the children in the videotape as his sons, Jensen wrote.
Vonneida is in federal custody, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service in Rochester said.
He is scheduled to appear Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Marian W. Payson in U.S. District Court in Rochester.
He is also charged in Schuyler County with three counts of second-degree course of conduct against a child and a count of first-degree sexual abuse, from the same investigation.
No date is set for his next appearance in Schuyler County Court, because he is in federal custody, the court clerk's office said.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.