A 63-year-old Chicago pastor was released on electronic monitoring Wednesday following an appearance at a detention hearing after being accused of molesting two relatives when they were young girls, officials said.
Bertin Salgado was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse of two of his relatives, records show. One of the victims was about 9 to 10 years old at the time of the alleged abuse, and the second victim was between 8 and 16 years of age, prosecutors laid out in a court document obtained by the Tribune Thursday.
Prosecutors said two incidents of abuse, on May 8, 2000, and May 7, 2002, happened at the Iglesia Manantial De Vida, located in the Englewood neighborhood. Court documents identified Salgado as a pastor there.
Prosecutors said the victim’s parents sent the girls to live with Salgado and his wife between 2000 and 2019 at a Little Village residence where they were subjected to abuse, which also happened at the South Side church, according to documents.
The girl continued to live at the Little Village home where the abuse continued on an almost daily basis, prosecutors said. The pastor would go inside the victim’s bedroom while she was sleeping and lock the door to abuse her nearly every day as well, prosecutors said.
As the abuse continued, Salgado told the victim she could never have a boyfriend because she “was only his.”
The abuse escalated when the victim turned 12. The pastor then started forcing the victim to touch him, and whenever she needed money he would instruct her to go inside his bedroom where more abuse took place, prosecutors said.
Salgado told the girl if she ever tried to tell anyone about the abuse they would not believe her because he was a pastor. Prosecutors said the girl told her aunt, his wife, about the abuse, but she did nothing.
On one occasion when the victim was 13 years old, the pastor hid in her bedroom closet to watch her undress. When she realized he was watching her, she ran to the living room and he chased her and shoved her onto the bed, but she escaped after he flung his robe open, exposing himself and rubbing himself on her, according to documents.
One day the victim’s sister was leaving to go to work and the victim begged her not to go because she did not want to be alone with the pastor who was still “doing it,” prosecutors said.
On April 19, one of the victims applied to be a volunteer at the church, and while being vetted for the position, she told another pastor about the yearslong abuse both victims endured. That pastor investigated her claims and asked both victims to write letters detailing their ordeal. That pastor then turned the letters over to suburban police who notified the Chicago Police Department.
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Detectives in Chicago recorded video of the victims’ claims and tried to speak with the aunt, who refused to discuss the allegations. Salgado was arrested Monday and is scheduled to appear in court in August. Efforts to reach Salgado Thursday were unsuccessful.