Pastor charged with inappropriately touching girl he was counseling

By Steve Schmadeke
Chicago Tribune
September 30, 2015

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-pastor-charged-sex-abuse-met-20150930-story.html

George Waddles, 67, who heads Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church, has been charged with sex abuse.

A longtime South Side pastor was charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl in his office during a counseling session in 2014.Prosecutors said the alleged victim and her mother confronted George Waddles, 67, who heads Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church, and secretly recorded his admissions to inappropriately touching the teen.

Waddles turned himself in to Chicago police Tuesday and made "a positive disclosure" to a detective that was consistent with the girl's story, said Assistant State's Attorney Tara Pease-Harkin. He was charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a Class 2 felony that carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison or probation on conviction.

Judge Donald Panarese Jr. ordered Waddles released on his own recognizance but barred him from any contact with minors.

Waddles' wife, daughter and son attended the bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building along with other pastors and supporters.

Waddles' attorney, Lewis Myers Jr., blasted the case, saying a Department of Children and Family Services investigation did not sustain the girl's claims and that she and her mother continued to attend church and counseling after the alleged incident.

"These charges should never have been filed," Myers later said outside the courtroom.

Myers said in court that Waddles has been preaching for 35 years and holds a master's degree in social work. He founded a training conference for those involved in Christian education called the Biblical Exposition Conference, according to an online biography. He is past president of several Christian education groups, including the Baptist General State Congress of Christian Education in Illinois and the National Baptist Congress.

Pease-Harkin said that Waddles had been investigated in the 1990s on allegations he had sexually abused a young girl in his office but that no criminal charges were filed against him.

Prosecutors said the alleged victim has known Waddles since she was 3 and started to be counseled by him when she turned 13 in 2011.

A year later, he told her he had dreamed about her and asked her to lift her shirt up for him, but she refused, Pease-Harkin said.

He tried to give her a hug and kiss her neck on five to 10 other occasions when she was in his church office at 1460 W 78th St., according to the prosecutor.

Once, in 2014, Waddles asked the girl to sit on his lap, and when she did, he kissed her neck and touched her underneath her underwear, Pease-Harkin said. The girl then left his office and about a month later told her mother what had happened, she said.

The two then confronted Waddles in a meeting at the church. He allegedly confessed and apologized, according to the prosecutor.

At a second meeting between July 2014 and February 2015, the girl and her mother met with Waddles and his wife and recorded his alleged admission, Pease-Harkin said.

Waddles asked them not to contact police, the prosecutor said.