EXCLUSIVE: New woman comes forward; claims inappropriate run-ins with Darrell Best

By Marina Marraco
Fox DC
March 18, 2015

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/28547053/exclusive-new-woman-comes-forward-darrell-best

WASHINGTON - Disturbing new details continue to surface about a D.C. police officer and pastor accused of sexually abusing two teenagers.
 
Monday night, FOX 5 spoke exclusively with the teens and their families. 

Now, we are hearing from a woman who says Darrell Best inappropriately accosted her when she was a small child.

"I just remember him being very creepy,” the woman told FOX 5 exclusively.

Now in her 30s, the woman does not want to show her face but says Best made inappropriate advances when she was just six.

“I had mentioned it a couple of times to my grandparents that you know he kept asking me for continual hugs, you know here and there, I told them that it just felt funny,” the woman said.

She says Best was her choir director and youth pastor at Brighter Day Ministries' AP Shaw campus in Southeast more than 10 years ago.

After watching victims come forward on Monday alleging he sexually abused them as recently as this past weekend, this woman wanted to come forward in hopes that more potential victims will too.

“He made a couple of gestures on my thigh and towards my neck area,” she said.

"He tried kissing you?” FOX 5's Marina Marraco asked.

“He did, he tried to lean in and I pulled away… He leaned right on in and he kept reassuring me that it was okay,” the woman said.

An affidavit filed Tuesday in D.C. Superior Court corroborates one of the victim's accounts. The affidavit says Best drove the victim to police headquarters after having dinner with the teen in early December of 2014. His key card was registered at the building during that same time frame, the teen alleges.

According to the affidavit, Best and the victim were seen on surveillance footage getting off the elevator on the fifth floor and walking to his office and then getting back to that same elevator approximately an hour later--60 minutes alone in his office, when the teen alleges he forced her to perform sexual acts.

Best is now facing multiple charges for sexual abuse of a minor. He is being held without bond.