United Pentecostal Pastor Ronald Terry Litz: Child Sexual Assault

This is Part 32 of an ongoing series on sexual abuse in the United Pentecostal Church. Ronald Terry Litz, now 82 years old and living in Glenn Heights, Texas, was born August 11, 1937 and at the time of his sex crimes he was married with three older children, and was the pastor of the Danville Apostolic Church, which was actually in Riverside near Danville. He was living at 702 Fifth Street in Riverside, Pennsylvania and had been the pastor for ten years. The sexual charges against him involved three different teenage boys. The church later became known as Landmark Apostolic Church and Kevin Schramm had been the pastor since May 2008. The name changed once again in the 2020s to Victory Life Church where Aaron Wright is currently the pastor in 2024.

Ronald Terry Litz, who has gone by his middle name for decades, was the vice-president of the 1963 24 member graduating class of ABI (Apostolic Bible Institute in Minnesota, a UPCI endorsed Bible college). That year, he and his wife, Martha May Litz, were the new Hobby Club Directors working under Mrs. S.G. Norris. (S.G. Norris was the college President.)

It is unknown to me when Litz obtained his United Pentecostal Church license as my older UPCI Directory collection is limited. He is not seen in the editions I have from the 50s and I have none from the 60s. As he was one of their Bible college graduates, one could guess that he may have received license in the 1960s. The 1972-73 Directory has him with a general license in Ohio and the 1975-76 Directory lists him as an ordained minister. There he was the pastor of the Lake Breeze Apostolic Church of Lorain (screen shot of a 1975 ad), a non-affiliated church. (Any church whose pastor is licensed by the UPCI is considered a UPCI church. They can go a step further and have a legal affiliation with the organization. This church did not.) I did find a 1971 ad from an Ohio church in the same town. I have a few directories from the 1980s, starting with 1981 where he is listed as living in Riverside, Pennsylvania and was the pastor of the Danville Apostolic Church, a non-affiliated church in Northumberland County.

I did find a mention of him and the church in a 1978 newspaper article, making him the pastor since at least that year. He is last seen in the 1987 Directory, where his wife was listed as the Ladies Auxiliary Secretary for the Pennsylvania District. In the late 1980s while Litz was pastor, Bill Woodruff, a 1986 ABI graduate, became the Youth Pastor, a Sunday School teacher and a church bus driver at the Danville Apostolic Church, though he did not hold license. After Litz was arrested, Harold I. Lloyd, a United Pentecostal minister with just a local license, became the acting pastor. He is no longer listed as a UPCI minister. No pastor is listed for the church in the 1988 UPCI Directory but in 1989, the church became affiliated while Seth Avery became the new pastor. He is now in Oklahoma.

The Pennsylvania newspapers started covering Terry Litz’s cases in September of 1987. He was 50 years old when arrested on September 3 and was out on $50,000 bail by the next day. He was arraigned on Friday, October 23, 1987 in Luzerne County, where he entered a not guilty plea and requested a jury trial. His crimes against two boys occurred at the United Pentecostal Church’s Pennsylvania District church camp in Fairmount Township between December 1986 and September 1987. This was in Red Rock in Luzerne County along Route 118. Terry Litz had taken the boys to the camp to help with maintenance chores, where he fondled them and engaged in oral and anal sex.

The two boys were members of the Danville Apostolic Church. Reports varied as to their ages, with one stating both were 15, another said they were 14 and one claimed they were 14 and 15. The charges, filed by the State Police, were involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault and corruption of minors. Litz voluntarily resigned as a United Pentecostal minister soon after charges were filed. L. Daniel Garlitz was the Pennsylvania District Superintendent at this time and confirmed that Terry Litz had resigned as pastor and turned in his ministerial credentials. Litz’s wife and 18 year old daughter soon moved to Texas to live with Terry and Martha’s two other daughters.

On March 8, 1988, Terry Litz plead guilty to three counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and five counts each of indecent assault and corruption of minors. He did this as part of a plea agreement that had been discussed with the families of both boys, where the District Attorney was to recommend that he only serve the sentence on one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. The other charges were to run concurrently with this. Whatever time he was to serve in this case, was to run concurrently with a case from Northumberland County. If the judge were to decline the District Attorney’s recommendations, Litz was free to withdraw his guilty pleas.

A sentencing date of May 25, 1988 was set. Michael Dennehy was his attorney, Ann Lokuta was the assistant district attorney and Gifford S. Cappellini, now deceased, was the judge. (See the March 9, 1988 article in PDF format.) In 1992 Lokuta became a judge and was removed from office in 2008 after charges were made against her in 2006 by the Judicial Conduct Board.

Your conduct will require confinement for further protection of young children in our community. Your actions have caused grave emotional consequences for the victims. You were an authority figure and took advantage of young children. – Judge Gifford S. Cappellini in sentencing Ronald Terry Litz

There was a separate criminal case in Northumberland County, where in another plea arrangement Terry Litz plead guilty on February 4, 1988 to three counts of corrupting the morals of minors. Sentencing was scheduled for May but was later postponed until June. The original charges, filed by Riverside Patrolman Steve Watkins, involved three counts of the corruption of morals of a minor and three counts of indecent assault for the oldest victim and one count of each of the same charges for the youngest victim. This involved one of the 15 year old boys from the Luzerne County case, as well as a 14 year old. Litz assaulted the boys in the church office and in Litz’s home. The 15 year old boy’s assault happened on two different days in August 1986. The other was for a July 1987 assault on the 14 year old. The police investigation of these cases caused them to discover the Luzerne County cases.

On March 24, 1988 Jerome Cohen, of the District Attorney’s office, requested a mandatory five year prison sentence, which Litz’s attorney claimed went against the plea agreement where he was orally promised that they would not recommend the mandatory prison time. Dennehy filed a motion to have the judge order them to withdraw it. The District Attorney’s office agreed to withdraw the demand.

On May 25, 1988, Ronald Terry Litz was sentenced in Luzerne County to two years minus one day to five years minus two days, with five years of probation to follow. He reported to the jail on May 31. The judge told him, “Your conduct will require confinement for further protection of young children in our community. Your actions have caused grave emotional consequences for the victims. You were an authority figure and took advantage of young children. I’ve considered the impact of public shame and humiliation not only to you but to your wife and family. (But) a lessor sentence would depreciate the seriousness of your crimes.” His time was to be served in the Luzerne County Jail instead of state prison, which is why the five year sentence was made to be minus two days. He also received a concurrent sentence of 11 to 23 months on the five counts of indecent assault. He had faced up to twenty years on each of the felony charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, as well as a $25,000 fine.

Litz shared that after serving his sentence, he planned to leave Pennsylvania and volunteered to do community service by speaking to high school groups and civic organizations about sexual abuse. For six weeks prior to sentencing (one report stated three months), Litz underwent weekly psychiatric counseling in a Louisiana hospital, where he claimed he “was able to understand [his] problem.” He continued to attend church. Terry Litz’s attorney admitted that Litz had a problem for years and was molested by an older man when he was twelve years old. Litz expressed remorse for his actions to the victims, his “family, community and profession.” Litz shared that his wife left him, but at some point they got back together after he was released from prison. They own a home and have been together in Texas for many years. He first registered as a sex offender in Glenn Heights on October 31, 1999.

I have tried my best to correct my mistake. All I’m asking is that you have mercy on me. – Ronald Terry Litz, convicted pedophile

On June 28, 1988, for the Northumberland County charges, Judge Samuel Ranck sentenced Ronald Terry Litz to six to 23 months on the three counts of corrupting the morals of minors. It was to run consecutive to the Luzerne County sentence, followed by three years of probation. This was to be served in the Northumberland County Jail after his other sentence was completed. Judge Rank felt Litz received a break in the other cases considering the nature of the charges.

Litz claimed he had visited two psychiatrists prior to his arrest as he had been feeling “urges inside.” He said, “I have tried my best to correct my mistake. All I’m asking is that you have mercy on me.” (Where was his mercy toward the boys while repeatedly assaulting them?) Litz’s attorney submitted a letter showing that he had attended more meetings than required by normal therapy. Also submitted were letters in support of Litz, including a therapist who had placed him on Lithium and a pastor in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, where he lived for awhile after his arrest. At that time, there was one United Pentecostal Church in Belle Chasse, an affiliated one where James Comeaux was, and still is, listed as the pastor. (See the June 29, 1988 article, page one and page two, in PDF format.)

It is draining to compose these articles and my heart grieves for the survivors and their families, as well as the family members of these predators who are innocent of wrongdoing. When I read that a predator considered multiple sexual assaults involving three boys as a “mistake,” I could not help but think that this person is not truly remorseful and has not accepted responsibility for their actions. He reminds me of the alleged pedophile, Steven J. Dahl, who wrote on December 9, 2013, “I made a lot of mistakes, that cost me my future as far as being a minister for the organization.” Assaulting anyone isn’t a “mistake,” but a reprehensible criminal act – a devastatingly life-altering violation of an individual. His attorney said that Terry Litz had a problem for years. One can only ask, and wonder, how many victims were there before these three? Are there any from when he was a pastor in Ohio? What about his days at ABI in Minnesota? Have there been any victims since his release? These are questions to which we may never know the answers as all too many assaults go unreported and history has shown that pedophiles repeat their behavior.

Articles:
Scrantonian Tribune: June 29, 1988
Daily Item: September 4, 1987 & May 27, 1988
Citizens’ Voice: May 27, 1988 & June 30, 1988
Danville News: September 15, 1987, March 9, 1988, May 26, 1988 & June 29, 1988
Times Leader: March 9, 1988, March 25, 1988, May 11, 1988, July 1, 1988, October 20, 1987 & October 24, 1987

Texas public Sex Offender Website – (partial screen shot) His information was last verified on January 29, 2024 by the Glenn Heights Police Department.

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.

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