Pastor Lonny Lee Remmers, 54, has been charged with felony assault and inflicting injury on a 13-year-old child with pliers and directing two church members to discipline the youth. He is the pastor of the Heart of Worship Community Church in Corona. After his arrest, many parishioners learned that Remmers has previously served time for fraud. Two other church members — Nicholas Craig, 22, and Darryl Duane Jeter Jr., 28 — have also been charged. Craig is Remmers’ stepson.
The boy’s mother had gone to Remmers out of fear that the boy was engaging in sexual misconduct.
Jeter and Craig has been accused of driving the boy into the desert and forcing him to dig a grave. They then allegedly threw dirt on him and then beat him with a belt.
Craig was a volunteer with the Corona Police Department. Remmers was a member of the city’s Youth Safety Task Force.
While they were first investigated for torture, they have not been charged with that higher crime — at least not yet. I am not sure why that charge would not be brought even the alleged evidence that the boy was zip-tied to a chair at the group home and sprayed in the face with Mace. Later, at a church meeting, Remmers is accused of taking a pair of pliers to the boy’s nipples while the victim cried and begged him to stop.
Here is the criminal code definition of the crime of torture:
206. Every person who, with the intent to cause cruel or extreme
pain and suffering for the purpose of revenge, extortion, persuasion, or for any sadistic purpose, inflicts great bodily injury as defined in Section 12022.7 upon the person of another, is guilty of torture.
The crime of torture does not require any proof that the victim
suffered pain.
206.1. Torture is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison
for a term of life.
It is not clear if the problem is a showing of “great bodily injury” but it would seem odd that you can tie a boy to a chair, mace him, and take pliers to his chest but not commit the legal definition of torture.
Remmers served time in 1998 for a telemarketing scam. When he was caught defrauding investors, he then proceeded to start another such scam and was given 46 months in federal prison for criminal contempt. He and his wife, Lisa Remmers, are still being sued in federal court in Ohio in a separate civil fraud case involving a different $10.5 million investment fraud.
Source: PE as first seen on Reddit.
I hope somehow this boy will recieve some love and doesn’t learn to be cruel to someone else because of this intolerable treatment he recieved. He needs kind and loving structure in his life to show him there is the right way he can be treated. Hopefully this doesn’t leave him scarred and bitter. I hope that so called pastor gets what he deserves. If he doesn’t, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when he comes before God after he dies. He just might find out what the young boy went through and then some. What a shame!!!!
Mike A., point well taken, but at this point I am willing to consider termination of more than parental rights for this creep. Where is George Zimmerman when you really need him?
tough love
This is clearly evidence of the assault on religious liberty in this country.
Torture is illegal? Has anyone informed the Department of Justice?
Can we get John Yoo to issue a legal memo, asserting that pinching nipples with pliers isn’t torture?
Surely he has a moment to spare from his professorial duties at UC Berkeley.
Well there is that famous line about “suffer the little children”…
We have to recognize the definition of pastor in this case and discern between those who need to reading from the Bible and those who need to be beaten on the head with one.
I forgot to add that termination of parental rights is more than appropriate in this instance.
Spare the pliers, spoil the child.
I think most “pastors” I’ve ever known should be arrested for fraud. What do they do but perpetrate a myth to keep them in money?
Dayyum. I lived in Corona for five years, when my daughter was small. I’m glad we didn’t go to this fellow’s church.
This so-called minister should never see the light of day as a free man, if convicted. His only defense is that if Bush can torture someone, why can’t he? Or maybe it was his corporation that tortured the boy and he will claim that his corporation can’t torture, even if they are persons.
Why would they do this? To prove Jesus loves him!
Bush Administration Torture Techniques Report Revealed
Thursday, 05 April 2012 10:00
by , RTAmerica | Video
http://truth-out.org/video/item/8338-bush-administration-torture-techniques-report-revealed
“A newly released document showcases the United States Defense Department’s torture techniques. The 37 page report details ways officials can torture detainees suspected of having ties to terrorism. In 2002, the document was handed to Bush administration officials, but is just now seeing the light of day. Now the particulars of the report are being called war crimes. Jason Leopold, lead investigative reporter for Truth-Out.Org who broke the story with co-writer Jeffrey Kaye, joins us for more.”
Looks like he graduated from small time fraud to big time fraud and battery, Summa Cum Louse.
Sounds more like he should be the Pastor at the Heart of Darkness Community Church somewhere up the Congo River.
The mace and the pliers are definitely OTT.
They should simply have waterboarded the boy. Maybe kept him naked in solitary – that sort of stuff.
That would have been perfectly acceptable in the US
Great line Anonymously Yours 🙂
“We may have definitions… But they are obsolete today…”
I think a better word is “inconvenient”
Until last year, the police weren’t conducting background checks on volunteers to their “citizens academy.”
From the Press Enterprise:
“When police learned of his (Remmers) criminal background in May last year, he was forced to leave the Corona police citizens academy.
The nine-month course provides an inside look at the department through monthly, two-hour classes that cover topics including investigations and SWAT tactics. Remmers had completed about five months of the program, including firearms training and a handgun safety course in which volunteers shoot at a gun range.
Both he and Jeter were dismissed from the program after failing background checks to become Police Department volunteers. Craig, who is Remmers’ stepson, had served as a police volunteer for nearly a year, patrolling shopping centers and other properties until he was forced to leave after his arrest this week.
The discovery of Remmers’ criminal record prompted Corona police to pass a new policy last year to conduct background checks on citizens academy volunteers, Rodriguez said.”
From http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/corona/corona-headlines-index/20120405-corona-pastor-in-child-abuse-case-was-in-youth-safety-group.ece
What some pastors won’t do to get a convert to heaven in a hurry.
We have no recognize definition of torture in the US….. We may have definitions… But they are obsolete today…. Where is alberto when you need him..
You say he was on the city’s youth task force…. My, my…