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Nathan Hasty, 34, of Huntington (Photo courtesy of The Journal Gazette) (October 2, 2012) |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — A former youth ministry leader has been charged with soliciting pornographic photos and videos from boys he met through groups he ran at two middle schools in northeastern Indiana.
Nathan Hasty, 34, of Huntington used email accounts to pose as a 16-year-old girl and send messages to dozens of boys, mostly between 12 and 14 years old, for conversations that he steered toward sex and sought nude or partially nude images, according to court documents.
Hasty was arrested last week and has been fired from his position with Fort Wayne Area Youth for Christ, where he had been assigned to programs at two Huntington County middle schools, The Journal Gazette reported (http://bit.ly/QUru3G ).
A federal magistrate on Monday ordered him jailed pending a detention hearing on Wednesday. Court records didn't yet list an attorney for him on Tuesday.
Larry Lance, the executive director of Fort Wayne Area Youth for Christ, said the organization has cooperated with the FBI investigation but didn't learn the details of the investigation until Monday.
"We are shocked and very sad," Lance said. "We expect the highest integrity of the people who work here."
The investigation is continuing and agents are attempting to identify potential victims, according to the FBI. Hasty told investigators he had been a campus life director with Youth for Christ for about nine years, court documents said.
Investigators reported finding two different videos of boys performing sexual acts in Hasty's email accounts.
The Huntington County Community Schools Corp. said its counselors at Riverview and Crestview middle schools are aware of the allegations and available to help students.
The school district will also continue to partner with Youth for Christ, which uses school space, "to provide programming for members of their organization," district officials said in a statement.
