Jehovah’s Witness elder in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, sentenced to prison for molesting congregant children

Norman Aviles-Garriga, 45, a former elder in the Jehovah’s Witness congregation in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, moved from Puerto Rico to Lancaster in 1999. According to one report, he became an elder after he had babysat children in Jehovah’s Witness families. A Lancaster County jury later found him guilty of molesting three girls in his church between 1999 and 2003. The three girls were from the same extended family. One report says he was among five members of the Jehovah’s Witness church in Pennsylvania indicted by a state grand jury for using clerical positions to sexually abuse children.

Two of the girls reported the abuse to church leaders. One report states that Aviles-Garriga discredited them by calling them “demons” and delayed their baptisms. A second report says that he allegedly made these statements and delayed the baptisms. Church leaders’ response to the girls’ reports is not described in the supplied material beyond this account.

The case came to light after the girls sought help from counselors in 2010. The reports differ on what followed. One states that the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office declined the case in 2010, and that the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General took up the investigation in 2023. That report does not describe the charges as having been filed in 2010. Another report says the counselors’ involvement led to an Office of Attorney General investigation and charges in 2023. One girl also accused another church leader of sexual abuse. That accusation is an allegation in the supplied material, and no charges against that person are reported.

A Lancaster County jury convicted Aviles-Garriga on 12 charges, including aggravated indecent assault and endangering the welfare of children. One report says the jury found him guilty on all charges. Another says the court proceedings revealed a pattern of abuse spanning nearly four years. After the verdict, his bail was revoked and he was taken into custody pending sentencing. Protecting the vulnerable, as children in a church setting depend on the adults who are trusted with their care, is the point at which the girls’ reports to church leaders become central to the case (Proverbs 31:8-9).

One report, headlined as a sentencing story, says he was sentenced to prison for molesting congregant children. The supplied material does not state the length of the prison term or the date of sentencing. That report says Judge Jeffery Wright stated that the length of the sentence mirrored the time the victims endured suffering. The same report states that Aviles-Garriga was classified as a sexually violent predator.