ARCHIVES:

Posts in this section were archived prior to February 2010. For more recent posts, go to the HOME PAGE.

Saturday, September 17, 2005                                                                                       View Comments

Pastor Faces Molesting Charges

BY JEN GIBSON, Times-Union Staff Writer

Mark Allen Johnson, 40, of 2210 E. Market St., Warsaw, was booked into the Kosciusko County Jail around 8:09 p.m. Wednesday evening on one charge of child molesting (a Class C felony) and two counts of sexual misconduct (both Class B felonies). He is being held on $50,000 Bond.

Johnson is the pastor at the Pentecostal Church of Refuge on West Lake Street in Warsaw.

Officers from the Warsaw Police Department and the Kosciusko County Prosecutor’s Office went to the church to serve a warrant for Johnson’s arrest Wednesday, but Johnson fled the church.

Johnson later turned himself in to the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department and was taken to the jail Wednesday night.

In the probable cause affidavit, Johnson is accused of fondling a 9-yearold boy in the summer of 1997.

The document also says Johnson “did perform deviate sexual conduct” with the same child in both the summer of 2002 and in April 2003. At the time of those incidents, the child was at least 14 years of age but less than 16.

According to the probable cause affidavit, while Johnson was babysitting a 9-year-old boy in 1997, Johnson reportedly removed his clothes while the two were sitting under a blanket together at the boy’s residence. Johnson then allegedly exposed himself and placed the boy’s hand on his penis.

The 2002 incident occurred when the child was 14. Johnson and the boy reportedly went to an abandoned house in Waraw where Johnson took off his pants and underwear and exposed himself. The boy allegedly performed oral sex on him at that time, the affadavit says.

In 2003 when the boy was 15, Johnson allegedly took him to a barn. Again Johnson reportedly removed his pants and had the boy perform oral sex, according to the affadavit.

Johnson faces charges in Kosciusko Circuit Court.