PENNSYLVANIA
Christian Today
Jonah Hicap 17 January 2016
A Pennsylvania appeals court has flatly rejected the appeal of a convicted pastor and basketball coach to reduce his sentence of up to 80 years in prison for sexually abusing a boy multiple times.
Jonathan Masteller, a former Lancaster County youth pastor, was convicted in November 2014 of various charges including indecent assault and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse on a 13-year-old boy and was sentenced to 25 1/5 to 80 years in prison.
The state Superior Court denied Masteller’s claim that his sentence was excessive, according to Penn Live and Raw Story. Masteller also served as basketball coach at Pequea Valley School District.
He was the victim’s basketball coach and youth pastor, according to the court decision handed down on Tuesday written by Senior Judge William Platt.
His abuse of the boy was discovered in November 2013 when a pastor at the Family Center in Gap found incriminating photos of Masteller and the boy while he was doing maintenance work on Masteller’s computer.
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