This Pastor Said He Was Merely ‘Counseling’ the Naked Man Tied Up in His Car

George Nelson Gregory, a pastor from Homestead, Pennsylvania recently charged with open lewdness and indecent exposure for being caught in public with a naked man bound in rope in his car’s front seat, has said that he was merely counseling the man about his drug problem and that there was no sexual contact between the two.

At 11:30 p.m. Friday, police responded to a homeowner’s call about a suspicious vehicle parked in front of his house. The homeowner said he had seen a naked man exit one car and enter another. The homeowner worried that his young daughter might see the man since the car was outside her bedroom window.

When police came to investigate, they found the 61-year-old pastor George Nelson Gregory, leader of Pennsylvania’s Waterfront Christian Community Church, sitting in the backseat, a naked man bound in nylon rope sitting in his front seat.

Although police claimed that the pastor said the two men consensually “play with each other,” adding “I have nothing to hide, I did nothing wrong,” Gregory has since denied those statements.

Gregory said that in this instance he was merely “counseling a young man with a drug problem” who he has allegedly been aiding for several years. Gregory claimed that both himself and the man’s wife had tried to get the drug user rehabilitated.

Gregory explained:

It did turn strange, but it wasn’t my doing, OK? And I was adamant that I’m not participating in that way, and so that’s when the police pulled up, and they assume things, but I’m standing by my story. It’s not true. I won’t deny that he began to take his clothes off and propositioned me, but I will deny, on a stack of Bibles with God as my witness, that I did nothing.

Oddly, the phrase, “I will deny, on a stack of Bibles with God as my witness, that I did nothing,” is a double-negative that roughly translates to “I will admit … that I did something.” A slip of the tongue perhaps?

The pastor claims that he was fully clothed and, thus, shouldn’t face charges for open lewdness and indecent exposure. It’s unclear whether the Waterfront Christian Community church is anti-gay.