Ex-youth pastor faces 2nd South Carolina charge

Published 1:15 am Wednesday, February 13, 2019

SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) — A former youth pastor intern from Alabama has been arrested on a second sexual abuse charge in South Carolina more than 40 years ago.

Greenville County sheriff’s Capt. Ryan Flood said in a news release Wednesday that 63-year-old Peter William Cooper of Elmore, Alabama, has been charged with a lewd act on a minor at a Bible camp in Marietta between 1976 and 1978.

Spartanburg County deputies filed the same charge against Cooper this week for an incident that a woman said happened during a Bible study at her home in 1976.

Police in Robertsdale, Alabama, called South Carolina officers after getting a complaint about Cooper.

Cooper worked at Central Church of Christ in Spartanburg at the time of the South Carolina charges. Cooper has been returned to South Carolina.