Bill Clinton’s Friend and Pastor Charged With Raping Adopted Haitian Children

An American pastor based in Haiti with personal ties to Bill Clinton was arrested for raping children and is now facing charges in the US for “engaging in illicit sexual conduct” with minors.

Corrigan Clay, 44, adopted two Haitian orphans and opened an evangelical kindergarten in Haiti where he was visited by his friend Bill Clinton during the Clinton’s notorious Haiti Years.

Like an increasing number of Bill Clinton’s friends, Clay was arrested on child sex charges by federal agents, according to an unsealed indictment. Clay is being prosecuted by the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, documents filed in Pittsburgh federal court state.

According to the indictment, Clay raped the unidentified child from January 2014 to December 2017. No further details are provided in the filing, except that the alleged victim was underage.

Clay’s ex-wife, with whom he had two biological children in addition to the pair of Haitian children they adopted, has acknowledged that the illicit sexual conduct involved one of their adopted children.

Shelley Jean Clay, who split from Clay more than a decade ago and now lives in Florida, declined to provide further details about the sickening child sex allegations, emphasizing that she was not involved.

“It was my child, but I don’t think I am at liberty to talk about it because the court case is in process,” she told The Daily Beast. “I’m not opposed to the truth coming out, but I don’t want to jeopardize the case.”

Clay operated his ministry, the Apparent Project, with a stated goal of “building future leaders in Haiti,” alongside a tattoo parlor in Port-au-Prince. He parted ways with the organization in 2013, according to Shelley.

“Currently, in addition to teaching adults, they are sponsoring classes for children, offering lunch-time ‘parties’ to feed street kids, and offering food and in some instances shelter to those with little to nothing to call their own,” an arts blogger wrote of the Clays in 2010.

Officials with the Apparent Project, which is still registered as a 501(c)3 and has brought in annual donations as high as $715,000, according to tax records, did not immediately respond to TPV’s request for comment.

Clay’s lawyer, William H. Difenderfer, was out of the office on Friday afternoon and unavailable to comment, his assistant said.

If convicted, Clay faces up to 30 years in federal prison.