Former local pastor, already serving 15 years for child molestation, found guilty in Pennsylvania
File photo by Tom Rivers: Roy Harriger, a former local pastor, walks to Orleans County Court on April 6, 2015, when he was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.
A former local pastor, Roy Harriger, has been found guilty of additional charges for sex crimes against children.
Harriger, 73, was sentenced to 15 years in state prison on April 6, 2015 for child molestation crimes. He faced additional charges in Pennsylvania, and was convicted again, WIVB (Channel 4) in Buffalo is reporting.
Harriger was found guilty in Orleans County of sexually abusing some of his own family members. His children said the crimes went back more than 40 years. During his Orleans County trial, three of Harriger’s grandchildren testified he had molested them.
The Pennsylvania charges involve young female famiy member in the 1990s. Harriger was sentenced to 2 to 5 years in state prison for the crime, with the sentence to be served concurrently with the New York sentence. That means there won’t be additional prison time for Harriger, who could be released as soon as December 2027.
He has been at the Wende Correctional Facility since April 9, 2015.
Harriger is the former pastor of Ashwood Wesleyan Church in Lyndonville and the Community Fellowship Church in Hartland.
When he was sentenced in Orleans County on April 6, 2015, Judge James Punch called Harriger, “a wolf in shepherd’s clothing.”
Punch said Harriger used his position as a pastor, as a leader in his family and the community, to try to silence the victims.
“The bullying, the use of charisma, the power of your personality were all brought forward to victimize these children and keep them quiet,” Punch said then.
In Mercer county, Pa., a woman came forward and accused Harriger of performing sex acts on her from when she was 8 until 12. She also said Harriger forced her to perform sex acts on a 5-year-old boy while he watched.
Harriger, who was pastor of Mercer Community Church of the Nazarene from 1991-97, was charged in Pennsylvania with rape, statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault.
