Photo: WEST WHITELAND TOWNSHIP POLICE; Chester County District Attorney
A disgraced former youth pastor, already serving three to six years in a Pennsylvania prison forsexually assaulting and impregnating a teenage girlhe had taken into his home, is facing shocking new allegations.
Last week, Pennsylvania State Police charged Jacob Mathew Malone, 37, with multiple counts of solicitation to commit murder, alleging he offered fellow inmates thousands in cash to kill the judge who oversaw his prosecution as well as the pastor who would replace him at Calvary Fellowship Church — located in Downington.
Malone pleaded guilty in 2017to institutional sex assault, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children. He was serving as the victim’s guardian at the time of the assaults, which began in the fall of 2014 and lasted about a year.
Malone, who was married when the assaults occurred, is the father of the victim’s daughter, who was born in 2016.
The new case against Malone began when the Chester County District Attorney’s Office received a phone tip last summer from an inmate at Laurel Highlands State Correctional Institution in Somerset, Pennsylvania, according to a press release.
“[Malone] allegedly offered a fellow inmate $5,000 to kill the head pastor at the church because of his involvement with Malone’s case,” reads the press release from the Chester County District Attorney’s Office. Pastor Harold Lee Wiggins, who replaced Malone, turned him in after learning of the abuse in 2016, and even testified against him at trial.
“The defendant also told the inmate that he would be willing to offer additional money for the murder of Judge [Jacqueline] Cody, who presided over the sexual assault case,” the statement continues.
Cody had rejected the terms of a plea deal that would have seen Malone serve just two years. Instead, she sentenced him to three to six years behind bars.
In addition, Cody ordered Malone to register as a sex offender through 2032.
According to the statement, Malone’s cellmate told investigators he said he “wanted to get revenge on the people involved in his case,” and allegedly asked him if he knew of anyone who could carry out the double-murder. But the cellmate “told the defendant to ‘put it behind him,'” the statement says.
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According to the statement, a second inmate came forward subsequently.
On Thursday, Malone was charged with attempted murder, criminal solicitation, attempted aggravated assault and making terroristic threats.
He has yet to enter pleas to the charges, and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.
Chester County District Attorney Deb Ryan called the allegations against Malone “extremely serious” in the statement, and confirms Cody and Wiggins are safe.
source: people.com
