Former youth pastor convicted of child sex abuse charges: DA

A Lancaster County man, once a youth pastor in North Carolina, was convicted of sexually assaulting two teens after a jury trial last week.

55-year-old Shane Ernest Richardson was found guilty of aggravated indecent assault of a person younger than 16, corruption of minors, unlawful contact with minors and indecent assault of a person younger than 16, according to a statement from the Lancaster District Attorney’s Office.

The two victims went to Manheim Township Police in January 2021, saying they had been assaulted by Richardson when staying at his home during a difficult time for their family.

Richardson had been a family friend and the girls were staying with him between 2008 and 2011, investigators said. The girls were between 13-17 at the time, while Richardson was 42-44.

The four-day trial ended in four hours of deliberation on June 9, the Lancaster District Attorney’s Office said.

“This defendant gained the trust of a family by taking [the victims] in and then violated that trust by sexually abusing them,” Assistant District Attorney Amy Muller said in the statement.

A Facebook page for Richardson showed that he was self-employed at the time of his arrest, but appears to have been deleted. He previously worked as a youth pastor in a church in North Carolina and still has clips of his time there posted on YouTube.

It is unclear if Richardson was ever affiliated with a church in Pennsylvania.

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