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A California pastor allegedly told a teenage girl that it was God’s will that they, in the paraphrasing of San Francisco ABC affiliate KGO, “have sex.” Victor Manuel Hernandez-Pineda, 53, was booked Friday without bail at the Martinez Detention Facility, online records show.
He serves as pastor at the Iglesia Pentecostes Movimiento De Gloria in the Bay Area city of Richmond. Pablo Cifuentes, a church elder, told KGO in the Saturday report that he filed a police report after his daughter, Karen, told him and her mother that Hernandez-Pineda sexually abused her when she was 13.
She said that the pastor convinced her it was God’s will that they have sex.
“He took me to a hotel near the school and at that moment I told him that I didn’t feel safe,” Karen, now 21, told the outlet through an interpreter. “I didn’t feel good and that we shouldn’t do it, but he made me do it.”
Police arrested Victor Manuel Hernandez-Pineda , a pastor, for molestation. (Screenshot of him in church: KGO; mug shot: Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff)
This abuse happened five times over three years, she said. Hernandez-Pineda would allegedly pose as a family member, take her out of school, and go to a hotel.
“It changed my life totally, mentally,” she said. “I was dead. It killed me. I did not think the same, my grades went down. I was angry with my parents at home. I acted out. I could not tell my parents anything and I was always angry.”
The family left the church a month ago. As a church elder, Cifuentes said he heard other complaints about Hernandez-Pineda. That included an allegation from 16-year-old Joseline Alvarez.
Joined by her mother, Joseline told the outlet that the pastor asked for a private meeting upstairs in the church.
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Alvarez said the pastor hugged her tight, touched her thigh, put her hand on his thigh and tried to kiss her. Feeling uncomfortable, she left, she said.
“I just didn’t know what to think because he’s a pastor,” she told the outlet. “Like, why would he do that to me?”
It happened 24 days before the interview, she said.
The outlet found Hernandez-Pineda when he arrived for his 10 a.m. service last Sunday, Nov. 26. He said nothing when KGO reporter Dan Noyes brought up that there were abuse allegations. The pastor instead gave a look of apparent incredulity.
He now faces three counts of kidnapping and four counts of molesting a girl younger than 14, according to San Jose newspaper The Mercury News.
Eber Cuellar, a congregant, told San Francisco NBC affiliate KNTV the charges surprised him — he always thought Hernandez-Pineda to be a man of God. But the pastor should pay if the allegations are true, he said.
“We’ve always loved our pastor, truly,” he reportedly said. “All of us. The whole church.”
Cops are looking at the possibility of more victims.
“We understand it’s scary and it’s not something you initially want to talk about but we’re here to talk,” Lt. Donald Patchin of the Richmond Police Department told the outlet. “We’re here to give you the resources you need so we would always always encourage them to step forward so we can ensure that if this did occur that he’s held accountable to the fullest extent of the law and this doesn’t happen to anybody else.”
