Minister Michael Todd Abromovich is accused of having a curious sideline in Denver. Abromovich was arrested for alleged luring a man to a Denver motel with an offer of sex and then handcuffing and robbing him while claiming to be a U.S. marshal. Judging from his mugshot, I am not sure which seems more implausible: the image of a minister or a marshal.
Abromovich is a pastor at Set Free God’s House ministry in Colorado Springs. He was arrested in Phoenix last week and was extradited to Denver on charges of kidnapping, theft and impersonating an officer. To make things worse, he also faces a theft charge in the Colorado Springs area. That makes the pastor unlikely to be set free anytime soon.
What is interesting is that the ministry says that Abromovich was able to fundraise and keep this ministry open. These accounts indicate that a woman assisted him by holding what turned out to be a paintball gun.
The most interesting charge is the kidnapping charge. The news accounts do not indicate that the victim was forced out of the motel room. That suggests that the false account given to the victim is being treated as kidnapping, which seems like a stretch. However, Colorado has a broad definition which include enticing people to a location on false pretenses:
§ 18-3-301. First degree kidnapping
(1) Any person who does any of the following acts with the intent thereby to force the victim or any other person to make any concession or give up anything of value in order to secure a release of a person under the offender’s actual or apparent control commits first degree kidnapping:
(a) Forcibly seizes and carries any person from one place to another; or
(b) Entices or persuades any person to go from one place to another; or
(c) Imprisons or forcibly secretes any person.
(2) Whoever commits first degree kidnapping is guilty of a class 1 felony if the person kidnapped shall have suffered bodily injury; but no person convicted of first degree kidnapping shall suffer the death penalty if the person kidnapped was liberated alive prior to the conviction of the kidnapper.
(3) Whoever commits first degree kidnapping commits a class 2 felony if, prior to his conviction, the person kidnapped was liberated unharmed.
After seeing this, I’ll never invite a minister offering sex into my motel room if he’s got neck tattoos.
One tattoo. Drunk at the carnival. Two tattoos: Navy. Three or more tattoos: INMATE.
mr. ed, You beat me to it w/ the jailhouse tats. When I’m looking for a minister the tats are important.
Neck tats? How long was he in the joint and for what?
fundraise?? You mean, “raise funds”?
Some of the names adopted by the religious folks are relevant and parallel to the raising of farm animals. A “Pastor” controls a flock of sheep which he is entitled to fleece. The flock eats the grass in the pasture. To succeed in religion an ambitious or greedy human needs a field of grass, some sheep and goats, and a good rap about God and sometimes country. No pun intended on the last word. Pastor Niemoeller warned us about flock fleecers of a more felonious kind. “First, they came for the gypsies and I did not say anything because I was not a gypsy. Then they came for the Jews and I did not say anything because I was not a Jew. And then when they came for me after they rounded up the other catagories there was no one to stand up for me.” So, some flock fleecers can be secular but even more devious. Never trust anyone with a cross or a swastika. Or one of those communist red crescents. Or someone with more than one tattoo.
Stupid is as stupid does!
I would say the kidnapping charge is sound based upon the statute quoted. The defendant is alleged to have forced the victim to make the concession of releasing his property (the electronics) to the defendant under the pretense of surrendering the items as if they were evidence and thereafter imprisoning and secreting the victim. This was alleged to be a forced situation by reason of using physical force to cuff the and the production of a device resembling a firearm to garner the victim’s compliance. The defendant is alleged to have moved the person after the handcuffing into the room which would remove the victim from view and hidden away from others.
It might seem a bit unconventional in how Kidnapping was charged against this man. Washington and Oregon have an interesting element of Kidnapping in the First Degree where a person can be charged if they use another person as a shield.
These two should be locked up together, in the same cell.
Gotta pay to play anymore…..
Are gulags simply out of the question?
He is a “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition” type of pastor whose god wears combat boots.