An American pastor based in Haiti and endorsed by Bill Clinton has been arrested for raping children and is now facing U.S. charges for “engaging in illicit sexual conduct” with a child while living in the Caribbean nation.
Corrigan Clay, 43, adopted two Haitian orphans and opened an evangelical pre-school in Haiti where he was visited by his friend Bill Clinton during the Clinton’s infamous Haiti Years.
Like a steadily increasing number of Bill Clinton’s friends, Clay was arrested on child sex charges by federal agents, according to a newly unsealed indictment. He is being prosecuted by the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, documents filed in Pittsburgh federal court state.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
Clay raped the unidentified child from January 2014 to December 2017, the indictment states. No further details are provided in the filing, except that the alleged victim was underage. But Clay’s ex-wife, with whom he had two biological children in addition to the pair of Haitian children they adopted, claims that the illicit sexual conduct involved one of their own kids.
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 and had no idea what was happening.
“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.”
Per Daily Beast: Clay operated his ministry, the Apparent Project, with a stated goal of “building future leaders in Haiti,” alongside a tattoo and body piercing parlor in Port-au-Prince. He parted ways with the organization in 2013, according to Shelley. Clay remains detained in a Pennsylvania lockup pending a court hearing on Mar. 15.
“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 Newspunch’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.
