Thread: PA: Feds: "Bishop" sex assaults teen boy

Feds: "Bishop" sex assaults teen boy
By SULAIMAN ABDUR-RAHMAN, Staff Writer
09/18/2008


The U.S. Marshals arrested self-anointed Bishop Charles B. Brinson and charged him with sexually assaulting a teenage boy. It’s the same bishop who, 20 years ago, served time for arranging sham citizenship marriages.

TRENTON - A captured fugitive "bishop" who police accuse of sexually assaulting a teen boy has a history of aiding and abetting illegal aliens.

U.S. Marshals on Saturday arrested the self-proclaimed bishop Charles B. Brinson, 48, of Florence, a man who had been wanted in Philadelphia on charges of soliciting to have deviant sex with a 15-year-old boy, State Police Sgt. Julian Castellanos said yesterday.

This same "bishop" was convicted in 1988 for aiding and abetting immigration fraud in a scam that landed him a 6-month prison sentence, according to reports in The Trentonian.

Brinson helped illegal immigrants get permanent residency by marrying them to American citizens.

Brinson had also founded and served as pastor of the Brinson Memorial Church on the 200 block of Brinton Avenue, according to snapshots of the church's defunct Web site. Published reports say Brinson allegedly sex assaulted the boy at his Florence home during the first half of 2008.

Feds arrested Brinson here on Spring Street and hauled him to the county lockup pending extradition to Pennsylvania, Castellanos said.

www.trentonian.com

Teenager accuses pastor from Florence of sexual assault
Thursday, September 18, 2008
BY KEVIN SHEA

A Burlington County man who is a Trenton pastor was arrested in front of his Spring Street church recently on charges from Philadelphia that accuse him of the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy, authorities said yesterday.

Charles B. Brinson, 48, of Florence, was arrested Saturday as he sat in the driver's seat of a church van in the 300 block of Spring Street. Brinson is pastor of the Brinson Memorial Church and represents himself with the title of bishop. He has also been associated with other congregations in the area, the New Jersey State Police said.

State Police detectives working as part of the U.S. Marshals' NY/NJ Regional Fugitive Task Force ap prehended Brinson on charges filed by Philadelphia police in connec tion with an incident that allegedly occurred earlier this year.

In Philadelphia, Brinson is charged with felony solicitation, felony contact with a minor and misdemeanor corruption of minors.

A state police spokesman said the charges allege Brinson picked up a 15-year-old boy in Philadelphia and took him to his Florence residence, where the sexual assault occurred.

The Burlington County prosecutor's office has no charges against Brinson, but he remains under investigation in both Burlington and Mercer counties, authorities said.

Both the Burlington and Mercer prosecutors' offices ask anyone with knowledge of possible additional victims to contact them.

Brinson owns several city properties, is a landlord at some of the locations, and has a fraud convic tion from the late 1980s involving fraudulent marriages, records show.

In 1988, Brinson, then leading the Brinson Memorial Showers of Blessing Churches World Wide, in Trenton, was charged by federal authorities with arranging marriages between illegal aliens and U.S. citizens for cash, a deal that came with a promise of U.S. citizenship.

In 1996, Brinson complained about his treatment in the Trenton Municipal Court after having to spend a night in jail for having several unpaid fines from an array of cases. During an interview, he ad mitted to a conviction in 1989 for marriage fraud.

Brinson was again in jail yesterday, at the Mercer County Correc tion Center in Hopewell Township, where he is being held pending ex tradition to Philadelphia.

Anyone with information about Brinson for authorities is asked to call the Mercer prosecutor's sex as sault unit at (609) 989-6415 or the Burlington prosecutor's unit at (609) 265-5879.


www.nj.com