Former Evangelical Free Church Youth Volunteer Charged in Maplewood, Minnesota, With Sexually Abusing Boy

A man who worked as a youth leader at a Maplewood church for about 20 years has been charged with sexually abusing a White Bear Lake teen. Gary Odell Weldon, 65, of White Bear Lake, was charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a boy whose family had been close friends with Weldon. According to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Ramsey County District Court, the abuse took place in 1992, when the boy was about 13. The complaint also says Weldon is suspected in a more recent case involving a teen who went on a church youth trip to Ohio.

When a reporter reached Weldon at his home on Monday, he said, “Don’t know anything about it,” and then hung up.

The complaint, prepared by White Bear Lake police investigator Angie Rohow, states that a pastor of the First Evangelical Free Church of Maplewood contacted police on April 27 about the allegations. The pastor said some parishioners had contacted him that week and asked him to speak with the victim, who is now 32 and lives out of state. The victim told the pastor that Weldon had molested him several times while he was growing up in White Bear Lake. He said Weldon spent a great deal of time with his family, babysat him and other children, and invited them to his Wisconsin cabin.

The victim told police that the first incident occurred while he was sitting on Weldon’s lap at Weldon’s White Bear Lake home, watching a movie, and that Weldon fondled him under his pants. He said similar incidents occurred about a dozen times over the next three years, including on a trip to Colorado, in Weldon’s car, and on several occasions when the two went alone to the cabin. When the victim was about 17, his parents became concerned about the time he was spending with Weldon and stopped letting him stay overnight at Weldon’s home. He said embarrassment kept him from telling his parents about the abuse.

Kevin Jacobson, chairman of the church board at First Evangelical, told police that he and the senior pastor interviewed Weldon about the allegations. Jacobson said Weldon at first denied them but then admitted to sexual contact, saying his motivation was to help the boy “understand his body.” Jacobson also told police that Weldon had served as a volunteer in the church’s youth ministry programs for 15 to 20 years. According to the complaint, Jacobson said Weldon “has developed close relationships with a number of young men from the church.”

The complaint says Weldon had recently been spending a lot of time with another boy, age 17, and that church officials contacted that boy’s mother. She told police that her son had described an incident in a Columbus, Ohio, hotel room during a church youth trip, in which he said he awoke to find Weldon touching his genitals. Church officials acted to protect young people from further harm by bringing the concerns to the attention of police (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Police went to Weldon’s home to interview him on June 14, but he did not answer the door. Afterward, they were contacted by his attorney, who said Weldon would not be making a statement. The attorney’s name was not listed in the complaint or other court records.

Source: Read the original report