Mom says church trustee assaulted her at Girl Scout meeting

ALIQUIPPA, Pa. — A local mother is pressing charges and demanding a church trustee be removed from his post after he allegedly physically assaulted her at a Girl Scout troop meeting.

The man is a trustee at the First United Methodist Church of Aliquippa, where the troop has held meetings for seven years.

According to the Keri Hall, the man-- who pretended to be the pastor -- burst into the meeting at the church and began yelling at the girls, saying they were not welcome there. That led to a conversation with adults in the hallway during which Hall claims the trustee grabbed her and shoved her.

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“This gentleman comes in all of a sudden and he starts screaming," she said. “I said to him, 'Can you please stop screaming? If you have a problem with us, why don't you come and talk to us out in the hallway like adults?'

"And that was the point in which he grabbed me by my shoulders, physically assaulting me, shoving me out into the hallway."

She called police, and when the real church pastor showed up, she says he refused to tell her who the trustee was.

"And that was the point where he decided to blackmail me, saying that if I really wanted our girls to have a place for our Girl Scout meeting, that I would just drop it and leave it alone," Hall said.

She's pressing charges and also demanding that the pastor be removed.

"I needed to set an example for my girls," she said. "I needed to make sure that they knew, walking away from this, it is not OK for someone to put their hands on you and you don't keep quiet about it."

Eric Park, superintendent for the Methodist Church's Butler District, gave Channel 11 this statement:

"A parent from a Girl Scout troop that meets regularly at First United Methodist Church in Aliquippa emailed our Conference Center to report an incident that included what she described as an assault by a volunteer church trustee. I reached out to her immediately and began a supervisory response. Based upon my preliminary interviews with the parties involved, it has been confirmed that there was no physical injury as a result of the incident. We are continuing to cooperate fully with the police in this matter."

Cox Media Group