By Liz Rhoades
Queens Chronicle
December 23, 2011
http://www.qchron.com/news/north/pastor-gets-years-for-sexual-abuse/article_c63a19a9-bb86-5875-815b-03b09e543654.html
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| The Rev. Phillip Joubert was sentenced for sexually abusing his daughter. |
Many members of the Community Baptist Church in Bayside continue to support their pastor, the Rev. Phillip Joubert, who was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for sexually abusing his then-13-year-old daughter two years ago.
Although no active churchgoer would comment on the record, several attended the sentencing to show their support. The talk is that the church will hire an interim pastor during Joubert’s incarceration.
The disgraced minister, 50, was sentenced by Queens Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron, remanded to jail, and will undergo a three-year post-release supervision and be required to register as a sex offender.
At last month’s trial, the pastor was acquitted of rape and incest charges. He was accused of sexually assaulting his daughter on two occasions at his Bayside residence in the summer of 2009. The rape allegations arose after the victim went to Norwalk, Conn. police a few months later saying that her father had hit her after finding their apartment messy.
At that time, she revealed to police about the alleged summer abuse in Bayside and the case was referred to the NYPD. Joubert was arrested at JFK Airport in November 2009 as he deplaned from a trip to the Holy Land.
The minister admitted to police he touched his daughter’s breasts and vagina, but denied having intercourse with her. His attorney accused the girl’s mother of coaching her testimony.
Joubert took over ministerial duties from his father at the Bayside church in 2002. He also served as pastor of the New Light Missionary Church in Norwalk, Conn., which he founded in 1989. He and his estranged wife have six children ranging in age from 15 to 22. The family lives in Norwalk, but Joubert maintained a church parsonage in Bayside.
Regarding his jail sentence, a former Bayside church member called Joubert “Satan’s server” and is amazed that he’s still the church’s pastor.
The source said the Jouberts have served the community since 1965, but have made no major improvements to the building. “They just lined their pockets,” the person said.
Some members, who asked not to be named, described the minister as a control freak, selfish, a user and a hypocrite. Agreeing with the characterization is Mandingo Tshaka, a black community leader in Bayside, who lives near the parsonage. Although not a member himself, he has known Joubert since he was a young child and has close ties to the church.
“My grandmother was treasurer of the original church, which was not Baptist, and I went to Sunday school there,” Tshaka said.
He is outraged by the pastor’s behavior and attitude and can’t understand why many in the congregation continue to support him. “It’s sad,” Tshaka said. “He never apologized.”
The activist believes the congregation has its role backward. “The minister is the employee of the congregation, not the other way around,” Tshaka said. “It’s very sick what Joubert did and he shouldn’t be allowed around children because he’s a child abuser.”
The Bayside activist also agrees that the church property has been neglected. “There is nothing community about the church,” Tshaka said. “They do nothing for the community, the church bulletin board is rotting and the stairs are not maintained.”
The congregation has around 60 members and is described as dwindling, since many blacks are moving out of the neighborhood, Tshaka said. “My people are leaving.”
Joubert grew up in Bayside, attending PS 31, JHS 158 and the High School of Performing Arts. He went on to attend Nyack College and the Alliance Theological Seminary and graduated from the School of Theology at Virginia Union University, where he earned a master’s degree.
He received his doctorate in divinity at the Virginia Theological Seminary and College and worked around the world in Baptist missions. Joubert served as assistant pastor at Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn before going to Norwalk.
Joubert is also former president of the Baptist Ministers Conference of Greater New York.
When he became full-time pastor at the Bayside church, he told the Queens Chronicle that he pledged to expand the facility, open it seven days a week and start a nursery and pre-school for children in the community. But none of that was done.
Tshaka, 80, noted that every time he saw Joubert, the pastor would ask him, “Have you decided where you’ll have your funeral?” He found the question rude and another example of the minister “looking for more money,” especially since Tshaka doesn’t even belong to that church.
“He’s got problems,” the activist added.
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