Former minister charged with molesting 9-year-old boy

By Borys Krawczeniuk
Times-Tribune
September 3, 2014

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/former-minister-charged-with-molesting-9-year-old-boy-1.1746142

State police charged a former United Methodist Church minister with molesting a boy repeatedly over a 10-year period from the time the child was 9 years old to the present.

Norman T. Faux, 54, of 1811 Lake Ariel Highway, Lake Ariel, was discovered when the boy’s girlfriend checked his cellphone and found an obscene text message. In the message, Mr. Faux asked to perform oral sex on the victim, who is now 19.

The girlfriend told her mother, who contacted Wayne County Children and Youth Services. On Friday, the girl’s mother brought the victim in for an interview with caseworkers. He told them Mr. Faux began to assault him when he was 9 years old in 2004, and continued for a decade, most recently a few weeks ago.

When the boy was 11, he began watching pornographic videos as a distraction while Mr. Faux performed oral sex on him. The boy said it happened so many times he couldn’t say how often it occurred.

The Times-Tribune does not identify victims of sexual assault.

Mr. Faux faced a Methodist church trial in July 2011, when he voluntarily formally surrendered his credentials as a minister. The Scranton District of the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church had accused him of sexually abusing a parishioner.

He was suspended as a minister a year earlier. At the time, Mr. Faux was a pastor at the Lake Ariel and Centenary United Methodist churches. It was unclear where the abuse in that case occurred or the connection of that case to this one.

State police in Honesdale charged Mr. Faux with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with someone less than 16 years old and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, three counts of aggravated indecent assault and one count of indecent assault.

Mr. Faux was arraigned Saturday, was unable to post $150,000 bail and was jailed in Wayne County Correctional Facility.