A Chester County pastor sexually assaulted an intellectually disabled woman in his home, DA says

A former Coatesville City Council member sexually assaulted a 21-year-old woman with autism and a learning disability in his home after months of having explicit conversations with her, Chester County prosecutors said Thursday.

Kurt Schenk, 63, told the woman, whom he is related to and got to know as pastor of New Beginnings Church of the Cross, “not to tell anyone [he] tried to touch [her], no matter what,” after the Oct. 21 assault was interrupted by her family, according to the woman’s testimony at Schenk’s preliminary hearing.

Schenk offered to give the woman a ride home but, instead, brought her to his house, where he forced her to the ground and assaulted her inside his garage, she said Thursday.

(The Inquirer is withholding the woman’s name because it does not identify the victims of sexual assault without their permission.)

District Judge Nancy Gill held Schenk over on charges of attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, and false imprisonment, sending the case to a county judge.

Schenk’s attorney, Dan Bush, cast doubts on the woman’s credibility during the hearing, pressing her on details in her testimony, particularly why she continued to speak with Schenk after he made her feel uncomfortable and hid their correspondence from her parents.

“We are looking forward to the truth coming out,” Bush said afterward. “Because what we heard in that courtroom was not remotely close to the truth.”

The woman, who said her learning disability affects her comprehension, testified that Schenk called her on Oct. 21 as she was out for her daily walk near her home in Parkesburg. He asked her where she was and, shortly after their call, pulled up to her in his pickup truck, she said.

The two had begun communicating privately when the woman turned 18, and their conversations were initially benign, usually discussing their days and New Beginnings, a Christian church in nearby Christiana, according to testimony Thursday.

But not long before her 21st birthday, she said, Schenk began to say “inappropriate things” to her. In phone calls, Schenk told her he wanted to “make love” to her and made sexually explicit comments about her body, according to the woman. He also asked her to send him pictures of her wearing a bathing suit, which she agreed to do, she said.

The woman testified that had she continued to talk with Schenk even after her parents told her not to because Schenk was kind to her about her disability and consoled her when she confided in him that friends of hers had abandoned her.

Those conversations, she said, were specifically timed to when Schenk’s wife was not home.

“It was disturbing and disgusting, and I’m so, so angry,” the woman said. “Shame on him.”

During their encounter on the day of the alleged assault, she said, she accepted Schenk’s offer to drive her home because it was warm out and she felt tired.

However, instead of dropping her off, Schenk drove past her home to his, about two miles away on Upper Valley Road in Atglen. The woman said she was afraid and confused by the unannounced detour but didn’t know what to do or say to Schenk.

At his home, Schenk asked her to get out of the vehicle on its driver’s side so no one could see her from the road, she said. He then grabbed her by her wrists and led her into his garage, closing the door behind them, she said.

Once inside, Schenk pushed her to the ground and sexually assaulted her, she said. She said she felt “frozen” and unable to move as Schenk attempted to pull her leggings off.

He stopped only when the woman’s sister began banging on the garage’s door and calling her name, she said. The woman’s sister had been tracking her through the Life360 app and had become worried when she saw she had traveled so far from home, the woman said.

Schenk got up and opened the door for the woman’s sister when he saw that police had also arrived.

The woman’s father said Thursday that Schenk targeted her while aware that she had a disability.

“Justice will be served in this life and when he stands before the Almighty God, the one he claims to serve,” the man said. “Proclaiming the cross, he is actually an enemy of it. He’s a phony. He knows it, we know it.”

Schenk gained notoriety in the mid-2000s for his and his colleagues’ attempts to have prayer be included in Coatesville City Council meetings, including a request by one official to have attendees stand and pray for another who had been arrested for drunken driving.

Amid protests from residents, and involvement from government watchdog groups, the council ended the practice by limiting prayers to the period before meetings officially begin.