Pastor jailed for sexual abuse

The National Main Stories

By ZEDAIAH KANAU
A SEVENTH-day Adventist (SDA) pastor has been jailed 15 years for sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl on at least four occasions, including raping her near the church building in Kairuku, Central.
Justice Panuel Mogish, in the Bomana National Court yesterday, sentenced Seifthen Jaomo, 56, from Tirokave village in Eastern Highlands, saying that “the victim was entitled to expect the offender to act as a true man of God”.
Justice Mogish said: “This is a case where there was a very serious breach of trust and dependency.
“The offence was committed next to a church building, a place of worship. That was also the place where the offender, a layman who preached the Gospel to the masses, held a special position of trust for his worshippers and anyone on the premises of the church.
“For three years the offender persistently violated that very special relationship with the victim, a most vulnerable member of his congregation near the church building.
“While he preached the gospel in one hand, his conduct was sinful.
“He has brought shame to the many good pastors who have committed their lives to bringing worshipers to know God.”
Justice Mogish said the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors but since Jaomo had pleaded guilty, he would use his discretion to be lenient in sentencing.
“It takes courage for a man to plead guilty,” he said.
“Many remandees languish in jail for a long time because they are too scared to own up to their wrongs.”
Justice Mogish suspended three years of the sentence and replaced it with a three-year good behaviour bond and deducted 10 months for time spent in custody.
Jaomo will serve 11 years and two months at Bomana prison.
The offences occurred between Jan 1, 2017 and Jan 31, 2020.

21 comments

  • Pastor i rong finis. Em igat meri na pikinini tu o? Self-respect and the fear of God wasn’t there. He just gave into earthly temptation, and worldly desire. No one is perfect but we’ve been created with an intelligent brain to know what is good and what is bad. He had that God given intelligence to avoid getting into trouble. Now his standing in the community and the church won’t be the same again because of his own doing.

  • Claiming yourself to be the Pastor and yet your are doing satans Job…you deserved to be jail four 11yrs punishment. Repent at prison before you come out

  • Sexual abuse of a 12 yr old girl my goodness!! The impact on the girl would be for her entire life, [ fear, trauma, shame] these are stonewalls to seeing the light on the other side. Very sad. Pasta this is a disgraceful act. If it was in the olden biblical day’s you supposed to have been stoned or handed up and castrated for your behavior.. wok marimari stap na yu laki.

  • Deserve to be in jail for good,now a days many pastors using their title as to lure woman and girls that they would perform miracles and blessed them and yet in return molest them…shame on him animal brain,,,,,,

  • now time you can not trust anyone but yourself.
    Daughters, sisters, mothers and even us man becareful …

  • A real devil in sheep’s skin. I once knew a former SDA Pastor in Wewak who tried to take advantage of a poor lady who had an argument with her husband and left her house and was accommodated by the pastor at his house.
    Instead of feeling sorry for this poor lady the pastor ask sexual favours from the lady for accommodating her, but she refuse and was evicted from his house in the middle of the night crying and no way to go.
    These are the types of cunning human beings hiding under the pretext of being a God Fearing Man and try to promote their selfish sexual desires. ” WHAT A SHAME ” .

  • His faith wasn’t strong with God that’s why he fell into temptation from the devil very easily,the devil works very strongly in this situation which included a man of God, this is very sad and also terrifying news.

  • Where is the new so called LAW for RAPE? Papua new Guineans are becoming wild animals now a days, the newly introduced law for Rape amended in the Parliament some years back sapos to be effectively exercised. We PNGans are just developing and we are shocked to this Western Laws and Livestyle. We are just moving into this millennium world in this 21st century. Our laws must be very tough like as stated in the bible” eye for eye or hand for hand”. Forget Traditional Laws. Our Good Government must start getting our Laws right and start enforce some acceptable punishment where it will make the common citizens of our country feel better as well as frightening of committing another serious offense to other innocent persons.

  • That stupid so call SDA pastor or layman has let down the other church members of the SDA churches.

  • Go read your Bible and dont judge….I think ur came from a Righteous Church which ur Pastor is same as God who doesnt commited sin…

  • 8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,8:4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.8:5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? John

    According to the law given by Mosses, such should be stoned to death. Don’t talk about Grace and Truth because grace and truth came by Jesus. The Sabbath keepers, shall we apply the law and stoned him to death or shall we apply the grace and truth and save him? Question kam lo yupla.

  • SDAs are not real Christians because they deny the divinity of Christ. They were founded by a false prophetess who brainwashed people with her plagiarized spiritual writings and revelations. Therefore, if something is not from God, then it can’t produce any good fruit. So don’t be surprised. This is just the tip of the ice berg.

  • I am with ‘Independent Observer’ on this one .. you cannot just blame the person ! You must blame the whole (System) church and doctrines .. If you are a born-again Christian you will know exactly what I mean ! We are now living in the days of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit ! Every body in PNG must do their research and save their souls ! The Trumpet is already sounding ..

    • Amen! Nathan.

      There is a missing link in our lives that we need to survive in this end time, sinful and dying world.
      And that is the Anointing Power of God – the Holy Spirit.

  • Few among hundreds of pastors are God fearing and committed to their work.
    The rest of them (pastors) in todays world are there for the lust of money and lust for young girls who attend church

  • Andy Mapi use your God given brains and don’t call SDA Church.

    The church did not tell him to do what he did.

    He did this evil out of his own evil desire, which gave birth to sin.
    Eventually, the sin will give birth to the death of his own spiritual life, unless he sincerely and ernestly cry to God for forgiveness.

  • This reminds everyone of us those who are involved in church ministries.Pastors,elders and youth leaders. Christians trust us that we are true men of God.Sometimes they are not our relatives but because of this christain life that we have, they come and live with us.We as a leaders we must fill with the Holy Spirit.No one is perfect even though he is in the ministry serving God.
    We need to give proper training to Christians avoiding such thing as this.That is why Paul in the new testament mentioned something about immorality in the church. This really spoiled the image of the church too.Christians will start to fear pastors and church leaders and keep their wives and daughters away because of this evil action of one man. I am sorry for his wife and children they stay behind him giving support for the ministry without knowing this evil action of their father.

  • Molesting, raping and abusing a female minor by someone of the pastor’s status is the worst offense you can ever commit. The greatest commandment is LOVE and what the pastor has done is outside of that great command and thus is punishable by death physically and spiritually. When similar offences by catholic priests were reported, SDA Church followers stormed the media and Facebook condemning their actions and now guess what those Critics(SDAS) are bitting their own tails.

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