A youth pastor at a Pennsylvania church has been charged following accusations that he forced a teenager to have sex with him on more than one occasion.
Daniel Allen Jack, 31, faces rape and seven other charges, including sexual assault by an employee of a nonprofit organization.
According to the criminal complaint, Jack met the victim, then 16, around December 2014 when she became involved in a youth church program at Amplify Church in Plum, where Jack was serving as a youth group leader and, later, as a youth pastor.
Amplify Church board member Joe Kubit told Channel 11 News that Jack was terminated in late April. He said as soon as church officials learned of the alleged inappropriate conduct, they contacted "Child Line,” as they are mandated to do.
Kubit said the church board voted to restrict Jack from participating in employment and volunteer opportunities and banned him from their property.
Kubit said the church community is horrified that something like this would happen, and they’re praying for Jack and the alleged victim.
According to Kubit, Jack was a volunteer for several years and moved into a youth leader capacity in September 2014. Despite the state police report calling Jack a youth pastor, Kubit said he was only a youth leader, not a pastor.
Channel 11's news exchange partners at Valley News Dispatch also learned that Jack was a technology employee at Kiski Area School District. Officials there told Valley News Dispatch that none of the alleged activity happened at the school or during a school event and that Jack is on administrative leave without pay from the school district.
At a special school board hearing Wednesday night, Jack could be fired, Superintendent John Meighan told Valley News Dispatch. The girl was not a student at Kiski.
According to the criminal complaint, Jack began regularly texting the victim in January and around Easter brought up the idea of the two of them having sex.
Arrest papers claimed Jack pressured the victim into sexual encounters despite the fact that, according to police, she considered the youth pastor a "mentor and father-like" figure.
The arrest papers stated that the victim told police that on one occasion after she resisted his advances, Jack raped her inside his home.
The alleged victim didn't fight a half-dozen other encounters, feeling that “…since she looked up to him as a mentor and father figure, that she would let him down and disappoint him if she would refuse to,” according to the criminal complaint.
The criminal complaint stated that the sexual encounters took place from March through May at Jack’s home, his parents’ home, a car and a wooded area near his home.
State police indicated in the criminal complaint that the situation came to light on May 11 when the victim’s mother reported her missing after finding a suicide note from her. Troopers said they learned that Jack had picked up the girl near her home and driven to a shack in a wooded area, where she was found and returned to her mother.
When reached for comment, Robert Mielnicki, Jack’s attorney, issued the following statement:
"Look at the affidavit. She says that he raped her but then she had consensual sex with him six times after that. After practicing law for 23 years, I cannot rule out that anything is possible but that seems strange to me. I only learned Mr. Jack was being charged yesterday and saw the complaint for the first time today at the arraignment. My client is absolutely shocked at the allegation that he forcibly raped this girl."
