Ex-bishop Convicted of Sex Assault Punished for Abusing Another Boy

By Lexi Belculfine
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 9, 2015

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/south/2015/06/09/Former-Homestead-church-bishop-convicted-of-sex-assault-gets-41-2-more-years-for-probation-violation/stories/201506090065

Duane Youngblood, former bishop at Higher Call World Outreach Church will be incarcerated for 54 to 108 months for violating probation.

A former Homestead bishop who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a boy will spend up to nine years longer in prison for violating his probation by abusing another child, an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge decided Monday.

“This man, with an ankle [monitoring] bracelet on his leg, was still molesting children,” the second boy’s mother said during Duane Youngblood’s probation violation hearing.

The former bishop at Higher Call World Outreach Church will be incarcerated for 54 to 108 months for violating probation, Judge David R. Cashman said.

“He has lied and he has scammed and he has conned me from the minute he stood before me,” the judge said.

That sentence will begin once Youngblood, 48, completes a 16- to 48-month jail term imposed in March by Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos after Youngblood pleaded guilty to corruption of minors in December.

In that case, a boy reported having been sexually assaulted for 2? years during church counseling sessions.

His mother said Monday, “He betrayed my son, and he betrayed my family. He is not repentant. He is not sorry for what he did. This man used to smile at me.”

All the while, she said, he knew what he was doing to her son.

At the time, he was still serving seven years probation after having pleaded guilty in March 2008 to a count of sexual assault. Allegheny County police had charged him in 2006 after they said he counseled a 15-year-old and sexually abused him during a session in a church office.

Judge Cashman initially sentenced him to a year-long intermediate punishment program and the probationary period, court records show.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does not identify sexual assault victims.

“I work everyday to get out of this hole I’m in,” Youngblood said during his hearing.

His attorney, Milton Raiford, said he thinks Youngblood is repentant, and that the judge was moderately fair when imposing the sentence.

“Mr. Youngblood, I don’t believe, expected any better,” he said. “He was prepared for worse.”