DERWOOD (MD)
Bethesda Magazine [Bethesda MD]
February 11, 2025
By Elia Griffin
A former teacher at a church in Derwood was convicted Monday of sexual abuse of a minor and other sex offenses in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Ervin Jeovany Alfaro-Lopez, 34, of Germantown pleaded guilty to one count of sex abuse of a minor and three counts of third-degree sex offense, the statement said. He faces up to 55 years in prison and is expected to be sentenced on Aug. 28.
A public defender representing Alfaro-Lopez, who is being held in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds, did not immediately respond to Bethesda Today’s request for comment Monday.
In March, Alfaro-Lopez was arrested and charged with sexually abusing multiple minors in connection with reports by four victims about incidents that occurred at the church between 2016 and 2018, Montgomery County police said in a statement. At the time, police were concerned there were more victims than those four who had already come forward.
The victims were four girls ranging in age from 6 to 12 years old at the time of the abuse, according to charging documents.
Alfaro-Lopez worked at the Elim Gaithersburg church at 15734 Crabbs Branch Way, church pastor Bernal Osorio told Bethesda Today in March. Police began their investigation in May 2023 after receiving a report that Alfaro-Lopez had sexually abused a child.
According to charging documents, a 14-year-old girl told detectives that she was sexually abused when she was 6 or 7 years old and had kept the abuse a secret until she reported it to police.
The victim told detectives the abuse happened during midnight services at her church when children were watching a movie, charging documents said. Alfaro-Lopez touched her inappropriately while she was sitting on his lap.
Before she told her parents what happened to her, the victim told her best friend who “reported Alfaro-Lopez did worse things to her during the same time period,” charging documents state. In addition, the night before she told her parents, Alfaro-Lopez allegedly told the victim’s father, who was a pastor at the church, that he was “guilty of the allegations” of abuse by the friend of the pastor’s daughter.
During the investigation, police interviewed the victim’s mother, who said she “found out about the alleged abuse of [her daughter] by Alfaro Lopez” in late summer 2023, charging documents said. She confirmed that Alfaro-Lopez had allegedly called her husband, the pastor, to confess to sexually abusing the victim’s best friend.
According to charging documents, two more victims were identified during the investigation. Alfaro-Lopez abused both of the victims, who were sisters, by touching them inappropriately over and under their clothing during a class while other students closed their eyes and prayed, the documents state.
The father of those two victims told detectives during an interview that a church member named “Ervin” had touched multiple girls, including his two daughters, according to charging documents. The victims’ “father advised that his daughters had previously told him of the abuse, that he had gone to the church Pastor and told him what had happened, and that the incident had been handled inside the church,” documents state.
In a separate interview, one of the sisters said that after her father discussed Alfaro-Lopez’s alleged abuse with the pastor, Alfaro Lopez “got in trouble” and was not allowed to teach, charging documents said. She noted Alfaro-Lopez later was deported but then came back to the church.
When interviewed by detectives, Alfaro-Lopez admitted to touching one of the victims and forcing her to touch him, documents stated.
Following his arrest, Alfaro-Lopez was ordered to be held without bond.
Former Bethesda Today report Courtney Cohn contributed to this story.