Nathan Appfel - ”The Religion Business”

Emmy winning filmmaker and director of The Religion Business, Nathan Apffel (pronounced App-fell) has spent 15 years researching and investigating financial and sexual abuse within religious organizations and how they are intimately tied together. 
 
 

Thomas Pinkerton Jr. used to tell children in his youth group in Maryland that it was normal for a pastor to kiss boys on the lips, because that’s how Jesus greeted his disciples, according to an arrest warrant made public last week.

 

Kissing was just the beginning, several men from Pinkerton’s former youth group told police.

 

Pinkerton,52, a youth minister known as Pastor Tommy, is being held without bond following accusations that he sexually abused six teens from 2006 to 2010 while working at Central Christian Church, an Assemblies of God church in Baltimore County. He was extradited from his home state of Georgia to Maryland last Wednesday to face 24 felony and misdemeanor counts in Baltimore County. His attorney, Justin Hollimon, said he pleaded not guilty.

 

An arrest warrant said the alleged abuse included inappropriate touching and kissing of six teenagers in Maryland, who ranged in age from 13 to 19. The warrant said the alleged abuse happened at the church and at Pinkerton’s former home in Maryland. A seventh man reported abuse by Pinkerton in Georgia,according to the warrant, and that report was referred to authorities there,officials in Baltimore County said.

 

Detectives believe there may be more victims and have asked anyone with information to come forward.

 

Pinkerton,who has worked as a traveling evangelist in recent years, was “completely shocked” by the charges, his attorney said Monday.

 

“He is a pastor. He gave his life to the community, worked for the community,”Hollimon said, adding that he filed a motion Monday morning seeking another bond hearing for Pinkerton after a judge denied his release last week. “He’s anxiously waiting his day in court.”