Sunday School teacher accused of sex with girl
Thursday, August 19, 2010
By Jim McKinnon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A Beaver County man has been jailed while awaiting a preliminary hearing next week on charges that he twice had sex with a 12-year-old girl a year ago at a church where he had been a Sunday School teacher.
Thomas J. Law. 19, of Rochester, is being held on $20,000 bail, pending a hearing at 9 a.m. Aug. 27 before District Judge Edward Howe in Freedom.
A police affidavit that supports Mr. Law's arrest said he admitted to two sexual encounters with the girl, now an eighth-grader, at a gathering house on the campus of New Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church in Economy.
The girl told investigators the encounters occurred last August after she met the suspect through his younger cousin, with whom the victim had attended the church.
She said Mr. Law twice sent her messages to meet him before Sunday School at the "stay house," a wood frame house on the church grounds.
The two sent each other various messages in the aftermath, including items mentioned on social networking Web sites. They discussed their relationship in the notes, the affidavit said.
The girl's mother summoned police in Economy after she discovered a note in her daughter's belongings that described the relationship, the affidavit said.
Mr. Law is charged with statutory sexual assault, corruption of a minor, unlawful contact with a minor, and two counts each of indecent assault and aggravated indecent assault.
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