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	Shock and Disappointment Pastor's Arrest on Rape Charges Stuns City's Frog Hollow Neighborhood By Jeffrey B. Cohen and Elizabeth Hamilton Hartford Courant June 24, 2006 http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-pastor0624.art jun24,0,4353076.story?coll=hc-headlines-local Carmen Pinto remembered the talk in the neighborhood about the pregnant girl. "They were like, `Oh, my God. How? How can it be? She was always with the pastor.'" "Exactly," said her friend, Jeanette Figueroa. "She was always with the pastor." The pastor, Modesto Reyes, 52, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting the girl several times at the church when she was 11. Before the arrest, Pinto said, the talk around the city's Frog Hollow neighborhood was that the father of the baby "has to be one of them kids from church, then, you know?" "Unfortunately," Pinto said, "it wasn't like that." Reyes, the pastor of the Iglesia De Dios, Cristo Te Llama church on Broad Street, is the father of the child, police said, based on DNA testing. He was arraigned Friday at Superior Court in Hartford on four counts each of first-degree sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. Dressed in a white, button-down shirt and brown pants, the neatly groomed Reyes said nothing as Judge Bradford Ward set bail at $750,000 and continued the case to July 11. Many of Reyes' supporters sat in the front row of the courtroom, weeping as marshals escorted him back to a holding cell, some shouting "I love you" to Reyes as he left. Outside the courthouse, the crowd of supporters declined to talk about Reyes' arrest. "We are just here because the Lord has sent us here," one woman said. Members of his family were not available for comment. A few blocks from the courthouse, as word of Reyes' arrest spread, residents of Frog Hollow reacted with shock, disbelief and disappointment. Some dismissed the charges against Reyes, while others said that they had suspicions. Luis Pabon, who has attended Cristo Te Llama, had mixed feelings. "No, no, I don't believe it," said Pabon, a father of a 12-year-old girl and the owner of a house two doors down from the church. "I never, never saw a person like that, I always saw a very serious person," said Pabon. "He'd help people, he'd respect people, ayudaba," he said, using Spanish to stress how much Reyes helped. "Un tremendo persona, un hombre bueno, tu me entiendes?" A tremendous person. A good man. But he also said he remembered after evening services ended about 9:30 or so seeing the pastor back at the church at 10:30 or 11 p.m. "I always saw him with girls 11 or 12 years old," he said. "Ten. Ten thirty. And I used to think, where are these girls' parents?" Police spokeswoman Nancy Mulroy said Friday that they have a "firm belief" that Reyes could have more young victims, and police are asking any to come forward. The girl that Reyes is accused of molesting, now 12, had been wearing baggier and baggier clothes over the past few months, arousing the suspicions of Pinto and Figueroa - both mothers themselves. But they said they were shocked to learn that Reyes might be the father. Pinto and Figueroa are good friends with the girl's family, which they said was suffering. The family knew the pastor, they ate at his house, they knew his kids. The girl's family, Pinto and Figueroa said, encouraged her to go to church.
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