CHICAGO (IL)
The Daily Beast
Brandy Zadrozny
A prominent preacher on Chicago’s South Side has been charged with sexually abusing a minor—but he’s still in the pulpit this Easter.
Prominent pastor Rev. George Waddles Sr. will be preaching Easter Sunday at Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side—as he has for the last 29 years—despite evidence that he may have sexually molested a young girl in his office during counseling sessions.
Waddles has pleaded not guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a felony that carries a potential seven-year prison sentence.
According to Cook County prosecutors, who laid out their case during a bond hearing in September 2015, the 67-year-old Rev. Waddles had known the alleged victim since she was a toddler. The girl—whom The Daily Beast is not naming because she is a minor and an alleged victim of sexual abuse— and her family had dutifully attended services multiple times a week and her mother even taught Sunday school at Zion Hill.
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