Note: This story contains details of child sexual abuse.
An Ohio man suspected of molesting more than 100 boys — victims reportedly “spanning nearly the entire length and breadth of the country of Haiti” — pleaded guilty Tuesday to hurting two of them.
Jeriah Mast, 45, told a U.S. federal court in Youngstown, Ohio, that he engaged in one act of “illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place” in 2004 and another in 2011.
Mast worked with Christian Aid Ministries (CAM), an Anabaptist missions organization, for 17 years. He was fluent in Haitian Creole and involved in every aspect of the ministry. He travelled the country in his truck, distributing resources and inviting children from local churches and communities to camp with him.
Boys as young as 8 told Haitian authorities they woke up to find Mast touching their genitals. Some warned other children, who tried to protect themselves by tying their pajama pants tight with string.
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Mast confessed to giving some boys money after masturbating on them as they slept.
CAM has financially supported eight victims, but required them to sign legal documents promising not to participate in criminal proceedings, attorneys in Haiti told Roys Report (RR).
Federal investigators with the Department of Homeland Security identified four individuals — now adults — who could testify against the former missionary. Prosecutors accepted Mast’s offer to plead guilty to two counts for two victims.
“His guilty plea … reflects both the severity of his crimes and our unwavering commitment to holding U.S. citizens accountable when they exploit children abroad,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said in a statement. “Today’s plea is an important step toward justice for the many victims harmed by Mast’s actions.”
Terms of the plea agreement filed in federal court were not immediately available Wednesday morning.
Mast’s attorneys and federal prosecutors said an “appropriate” sentence would put Mast in federal prison for 25 to 35 years. He previously faced a maximum possible sentence of 120 years.
Mast’s sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 15.
Rick Ashley, a North Carolina man who spent years doing aid work in Haiti and has helped some of the abuse survivors, said the sentence seems insufficient and the plea agreement incomplete.
“If any way possible, I’m going to ask to address the court, to tell them that the other boy victims need to be included,” Ashley told RR. “Perhaps Jeriah will agree to admit all his crimes and ask for forgiveness.”
‘The absolute minimum that is required’
Mast has confessed before — and received a reduced punishment as a result.
An Ohio victim described Mast as someone who is always able to avoid the consequences of his actions. The man said Mast manipulates not only his victims, but those in authority.
“He will go to almost any length to avoid having to answer his crimes, only doing the absolute minimum that is required,” he said, according to court records.
A Haitian pastor accused Mast of sexually abusing children in 2010. CAM subsequently disciplined him for an unspecified “moral failure.” The organization sent Mast back to Haiti a few years later, putatively “restored.”
Haitian authorities started investigating additional allegations of child molestation in 2019. Mast fled to the U.S. and confessed “immoral sexual relationships” to leaders of his home church in Millersburg, Ohio, roughly 66 miles south of Cleveland. The church said in a statement at the time that Mast “requested discipleship and accountability from the church to help build him up spiritually and to free him from this addiction.”
Shining Light Christian Fellowship developed a restoration plan that included a voluntary confession to law enforcement. Mast’s pastor and wife accompanied him to the Holmes County sheriff’s office in May 2019.
“I just want to (get) it all out,” Mast said, according to court records. “I want my life to be restored.”
The former missionary told investigators that he remembered “homosexual acts” with 30 or 31 boys in Haiti, starting in 2003 or 2004 and continuing until 2019. He only recalled some of their names, he said. He wrote out a list with names or descriptions.
Mast also claimed the sex was consensual and said the children tempted him by being too vulnerable, court records show.
During the interview with sheriff’s office investigators, Mast admitted there were victims in Ohio as well. He said he had molested four children in his family’s Mennonite church.
The state decided to prosecute those cases first. Five months later, in October 2019, Mast accepted a plea deal that reduced his maximum possible sentence from life in prison to 10 years.
His hearing was crowded with church members and CAM staff. Many wrote letters to Holmes County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert D. Rinfret asking for leniency. Rinfret said that in more than 30 years in the criminal justice system, he had never seen so many people come forward for someone accused of a crime.
One of Mast’s American victims, however, pleaded with the judge to consider potential future victims.
“I am no longer worried about what Mr. Mast will do to me ever again,” the man said in the hearing. “I am extremely worried that given the opportunity, he will do it to another innocent child. … I would respectfully ask that this predator be removed from society for as long as legally possible.”
Mast was sentenced to nine years. He was sent to prison about 80 miles from home — and released after six years.
Another judge said in 2025 that Mast “demonstrated remorse” and understood the “emotional and psychological pain and suffering he inflicted upon the child victims and their families.”
Federal case raises constitutional question
Federal prosecutors mounted their case later that year, using a 2003 law that criminalizes “touching … the genitalia of another person who has not attained the age of 16 years” while traveling abroad.
Mast’s lawyers challenged the constitutionality of the law, arguing that Congress did not have the authority to make any activity — however horrendous — illegal in Haiti. American legal jurisdiction only extends to foreign territory in very specific circumstances.
The lawyers said that the Constitution allows for regulation of international commerce, under the foreign commerce clause, but that only applies to commercial sex acts. Mast did not admit to paying to molest children.
The federal district court rejected the argument in August, noting there are several unanswered legal questions, but a federal appeals court had previously ruled the law “not obviously unconstitutional.”
The lawyers also tried to get the federal court to throw out Mast’s 2019 confession, arguing church leaders coerced the former missionary to confess. The court ruled there was no evidence supporting that claim.
Mast subsequently agreed to change his plea, acknowledging guilt in two cases.
One Haitian man who identified himself as a victim told RR that he placed little hope in the American justice system. Even if there were a trial and a verdict, he said, that would not bring adequate restitution for him or his abused friends.
“There is nothing to celebrate,” Shelove Desire said Wednesday in a WhatsApp message. “No one can solve anything for us victims. I do not think I will waste time. … We will always suffer.”
Daniel Silliman is senior reporter/editor at The Roys Report. He began his two decades in journalism covering crime in Atlanta and has since led major investigations into abuse and misconduct in Christian contexts. Daniel and his wife live in Johnson City, Tennessee
7 Responses
Jeriah Mast should be sent back to Haiti and tried there. As a Christian, I should think he would want to face the consequences of his misdeeds to try to undo some of the damage he has done. After all, Jesus said “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” and what would Jesus have done in this situation?
It sickens me that these boys were paid for their silence.
Leniency???? never. these are horrific crimes against children which will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
“Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgement: Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause … Thou shalt not wrest the judgement of thy poor in his cause. Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked. And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. And thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 23:1,2,3,6,7,8,9
“But let judgement run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Amos 5:24
In Yahshua’s Name, Almighty YHWH, set the captives free there in Haiti and in the United States of America. We trust You, today, and know that You do all things well.
This half of a man is a predator, and apparently lifelong. He was 22 in 1983.
he’s not “a homosexual” engaging ”homosexual acts”. He is a child molester. if he were molesting girls, he would not be a “heterosexual” engaging ”heterosexual acts”. AND YOU WOULD NEVER CALL HIM ONE.
The organization supported eight boys, but required them to sign NDAs to avoid further prosecution, scandal to the church, and more money being paid out. These are not the actions of moral people. can you spell COVER-UP?
Mast said that the boys tempted him. They cannot. they were too vulnerable. Absolutely. AND THAT’S WHAT HE LOVED ABOUT IT.but that isn’t showing remorse. Quite the opposite. the church knew and the Judge knew.
The sexual abuse problem and conservative churches will continue as long as people believe in nonsense like restoration, “I’ll never do it again“, coverups, blaming people that are not responsible,and Worldly things far more important to them than children being damaged.
There’s good argument that this person had history of not only being a predator of children, but also a rapist of children.
The fact that christian missionary & community bodies don’t vet and manage volunteers & staff – behaviour & work practice accountability – makes them enablers of criminality. Lastly, any christian organisation that utilises NDA when criminality has occurred and victims are made, is christian in name only.
No NDAs, no 2nd chances EVER in child molestation cases or SA of any kind in ministry! Never, ever! Wake up church!! I would not have expected this in the Mennonite Church. This is beyond heartbreaking as he was there to be the hands & feet of Jesus. He may be redeemable to the Lord with God’s grace to be forgiven but he should be locked away and the key thrown away, never to see the outside of prison doors. He has his chances to change and he didn’t.