BEDFORD, Pa. (AP) — A traveling preacher will likely spend the rest of his life in prison for molesting an 11-year-old Pennsylvania girl he assaulted while visiting her community for a religious revival.
A Bedford County judge says the Rev. Walter Bradshaw will spend at least 66 years in prison for the 2009 sexual assault in a Bedford Township motel room.
The victim and her mother had been friends of the Lexington, N.C. evangelist after meeting him at a church event. The girl's mother has pleaded no contest to endangerment and soliciting perjury after police say she knew Bradshaw planned to assault her daughter when she took the girl to the motel.
The 63-year-old Bradshaw tearfully denied the allegations in a statement at Wednesday's sentencing. He said the now-teenager and her family are "dysfunctional."
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