Part 2 - August 23, 2025. Former Youth Pastor Arrested and Accused of Abusing 6 Teens

On part 2 of today's podcast, we cover the story of a former Youth Pastor arrested and accused of abusing 6 teenagers

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Still broadcasting from the Civic Cipher studios. Welcome back to
the QR code, where we share perspective, seek understanding, and
shape outcomes. The man on the microphone you are about
to hear from is a gentleman. He is a scholar,
and he is the more measured of the two of us.
He is the Q in the QR code, and he
goes by the name of Q Ward.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
The wish you just heard is the R in the
QR code. He goes by the name ramses Jah, and
sometimes to make his brother sound bigger or better or
more impressive than he is, ramses be lying to y'all.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
No, no, not at all, not at all. And I
want you to stick around because later on the show
we're gonna be talking about how Jimmy Kimmel he has
recently gotten Italian citizenship. Just in case, we're also going
to be talking about a former youth pastor who was
arrested and accused of abusing sixteens. This would be sexual abuse,

(00:53):
by the way, so careful and trigger warning. I follows
this might be affected by that. But before we get there,
let's talk to Q and get his clap back for
Donald Trump rewriting history in real time.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Que oh Man.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, you know, these get more difficult, not less, the
more we do them. I pray that one day there's
an expiration and that the things that we clap back
on are like you know, anecdotal and punny and pop
culture references and jokes, and that we make people laugh,

(01:33):
and that this segment turns into something different, maybe even
satire or maybe even just all out funny. But right
now we got very very serious things that we have
to speak to, like rewriting history in order to rewrite
or reframe power. History is not an elective, it's not optional,

(02:04):
it's not subjective. History is not a branding exercise. It's
our collective memory, generational memory passed down so that we
understand the foundation of our country, the foundation of our people,

(02:30):
a collection and archive of all of our collective experiences
that brought us to where we are now, in hopes
that we learn from and benefit from those things moving forward.
Yet here we are today watching the White House tell
the Smithsonian to align its museum with unity and American exceptionalism,

(02:58):
removing divisive narratives, even if those narratives just so happened
to be the truth or in this case ramses, especially
when those narratives happened to be the truth. The Trump
administration has launched a sweeping review of eight Smithsonian museums,

(03:20):
including most notably the National Museum of African American or
I'm Sorry, the National Museum of American History, and the
African American History Museum, demanding that all exhibits reflect Trump's
version of American greatness. This follows an executive order coded
and I quote restoring truth and Sanity to American History,

(03:46):
aimed at purging what they're calling improper ideology. Earlier, the
Smithsonian quietly removed references of Trump's to impeachments, only to
restore them after public backlash. And I don't have to
have rams as confirmed that that happened with softened language.

(04:06):
Calling these things alleged the truth now comes with a disclaimer.
Impeached becomes allegedly impeached, like we didn't see it happen.
Democracy in parentheses or quotation marks. Museums dedicated to black, Indigenous,

(04:27):
and women's history are under fire, being labeled divisive and
targeted again for content review. If your story doesn't fit
white American exceptionalism, they'll call it divisive and whitewash it
until it fits their script. Museums have curators. This sounds

(04:50):
more like censorship. They remove watchdogs from agencies, suppress government data,
and now they're tampering with culture archives. They'll try to
make you believe that they want to preserve American values,
when they're really just eliminating uncomfortable and unflattering truths. When

(05:12):
you control the story, you control the destiny. And by
rewriting museums, they're trying to silence dissent. Of course, not patriotism,
but diversity, not democracy, but conformity. Real history, as my
brother has taught me time and time again, and I

(05:33):
appreciate your drograms, is includes the hurtful parts too, pain
injustice and resistance, not just celebrations and praise. This is
not history under review, it's legacy under siege. All of

(05:53):
us should take this personally, because this does not stop
with the people you don't like. Once they raised our
true past, there's actually nothing left for us to fight for.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Where we're still here.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
And our only option is not to just accept it
and walk away and let them purge us from existence quietly. Rams,
it becomes harder and harder to know what to do,
what to feel, what to think? You talk to me
about protesting. I know you believe in it as a
practice and as an exercise wholeheartedly, because you've seen the

(06:33):
effects of it.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
But are we past a point where that it will
even work? Bro? Like, what do we do?

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well? Thank you for inviting me into your clap pack.
I think you know you come from church. Q. Your
mother was a pastor. I come from church. My father
was a pastor. There was a song we used to sing,
this little light of mine. Let it shine, Let it shine,
Let it shine, Let it shine everywhere I go. I'm

(07:06):
gonna let it shine. You know, those of us that
know our history have a responsibility to teach it, to
carry it into the future. I've said it before. Black
people will last longer than Donald Trump. Black people have
been here longer than every person. Black people were the

(07:27):
first people. We will be here longer than all of
this stuff that we're dealing with right now. And again,
on the scale of the country, things move very slowly,
so this might be a significant chunk of our lifetime
living under the ripple effects of this man's presidency, just
like we lived under the ripple effects of Reaganism. Reagan's

(07:49):
presidency and Reaganomics. But we got here, we can get back,
we can rebound. It just looks very bleak. It's like
darkest before.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Dawn, you know.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Moving on to some dialogue, Let's talk about this former
youth pastor was arrested and accused of abusing sixteen sexually
abusing sixteens. Okay, let's just get right into it. This is
from NBC. Thomas Pinkerton Junior used to tell children in
his youth group in Maryland that it was normal for

(08:23):
a pastor to kiss boys on the lips because that's
how Jesus greeted his disciples. According to an arrest warrant
made public last week, all right, this is going to
get gross. Yeah, sorry, in advance, kissing was just the beginning,
several men from Pinkerton's former youth group told police. Pinkerton
fifty two, a youth minister known as Pastor Tommy, is
being held without bond following accusations that he sexually abused

(08:46):
sixteens from two thousand and six to twenty ten while
working at Central Christian Church and Assemblies of God Church
in Baltimore County. It was extradited from his home state
of Georgia to Maryland last Wednesday to face twenty four
fell money and misdemeanor counts in Baltimore County. His attorney,
Justin Holloman, said he pled not guilty and arrest. Warrants

(09:08):
said the alleged abuse included inappropriate touching and kissing of
six teenagers in Maryland, arranged in age from thirteen to nineteen.
The warrant said the alleged abuse happened at the church
and at Pinkerton's former home in Maryland. A seventh man
reported abuse by Pinkerton in Georgia, according to the warrant,
and that report was referred to authorities there. Officials in

(09:28):
Baltimore County said detectives believes sorry. Detectives believe there may
be more victims than have asked anyone with information to
come forward. Pinkerton, who has worked as a traveling evangelist
in recent years, was completely shocked by the charges, his
attorney said Monday, quote. He's a pastor. He gave his
life to the community, work for the community, unquote, Holloman said,

(09:49):
adding that he filed a motion Monday morning seeking another
bond hearing for Pinkerton after a judge denied his release
last week quote he is anxiously awaiting his day in court.
Arrest comes as the Assemblies of God, the world's largest
Pentecostal denomination with nearly three million members across thirteen thousand
churches in the United States, is grappling with a string

(10:12):
of child sex abuse allegations. As part of an ongoing
investigation into the denomination's handling of abuse claims, NBC News
published and investigation last week on interviews, emails, court filings,
and police reports that examined how in Assemblies of God
college ministry guided hundreds of students to the home of
Danielle Savalla, a convicted sex offender lauded by some as

(10:33):
the holiest man alive. Days later, Assemblies of God leaders
addressed the issue of sex abuse in the denomination during
a biennial gathering in Orlando, defending their handling of the
Savalla case while also pledging to make changes to prevent
similar abuses in the future. Okay, so, why in the
world are we talking about this? Hmm, you know why

(10:59):
we're talking about this. We're talking about this because Republicans.
It's republicans, I don't want to say conservatives. It's Republicans.

(11:20):
I mean, there's a significant amount of overlap there. But
in the past, oh man, how many years has it been,
twenty sixteen, seventeen, nine years, we'll call it. There have
been these attacks that have been justified the ramping up
of attacks, because these attacks have been long standing attacks,

(11:42):
but are ramping up of attacks on trans people, on immigrants,
on democrats, on drag shows, and somehow all of these

(12:06):
people are corrupting this country, and those who bear the
brunt of that corruption are children. Right, The moral decay
of a society is in the hands of these groups
immigrants and you know, trans folks and so forth, right,

(12:32):
And they often justify it saying, you know, these people
are brainwashing children, these people are corrupting children, these people
are attacking children, these are pedophiles, these are you know whatever.
And some of this stuff, to be fair, is like
conspiracy theorists and all that sort of stuff. But some
of the stuff is mainstream. Fox News talks about trans people.

(12:58):
I think on average, I think it's it's like seventeen
times an hour. Most of it has to do with
trans athletes playing sports, right, And in terms of trans
athletes that play sports, I forget if it's on the

(13:18):
high school level or the college level, where it's indeed,
an athlete who has transitioned from a male to a
female that has competed in sports and has, as a
result of their competition in sports, won anything. I think

(13:38):
the number was like, ultimately, like when you included all
of the factors in the qualifiers or trans athletes, you
know whatever, it ended up being one human being in
the United States of America who they were focused on.
One person, one three hundred and seventy eighty million. However,

(14:01):
many people here, they talk about it seventeen times an hour.
And you know who suffers as a result of that,
all trans people. Because Fox News viewers hear trans and
then they hear anger. They hear trans, and then they
hear bad. They hear trans, they hear how society is,
you know whatever. They hear immigrants, they hear anger, they

(14:23):
hear immigrants, they hear children are under attack, and pedophiles
and all that sort of stuff. And you know who
they never look at the people actually committing the pedophile
the pedophiling. I don't know if that's the word, but
whatever this gook is pedophilia, thank you. I don't even
have to use that word because I'm a normal human being.

(14:44):
But these sikos are I think there's something like seventy percent.
And I'm gonna check this out when you start talking,
because i don't want to give false data, but I'm
going to find the ratio of pedophile, like convict TYPEPAW
was broken down by race. And this is one area

(15:04):
where we don't need any diversity, equity and inclusion because
it is dominated by white men by a long way.
I'll get the exact number. But anyway, it's so funny
because these articles, they never seem to resonate, and this
has been an ongoing conversation. This goes all the way

(15:25):
back to the nineties with the Catholic Church. These people
in church hurting all the children, and then they attack
trans people for finding themselves. These are human beings. There
are brothers, sisters or siblings whichever however they self identify
or whatever. Immigrants these people are. We talked to the

(15:46):
story yesterday. They rated a home depot twice yesterday, people
trying to get jobs, not.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
The worst of the worst.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
And they picked up people for oh, you had a
DUI a few years ago, as if you know your
twenty two year old neighbor didn't get a DEI when
she was in college. Same crime. Quote unquote, Oh no,
this one did get them out of the country. Sometimes
these people, it just anyway, go ahead, you.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
I don't want us to conflate things because you're saying
immigrant and pedophenia and trans person. You're saying them all
in the same story at the same time. And we're
not talking about all of those things, right, the overtly
religious white men, not immigrants, not trans people, overtly religious

(16:45):
white men. And the most the saddest part was during
the last election watching people that belonged to the subgroup
mentioned here, immigrants, black and brown people specifically that are

(17:06):
all so overtly religious, clinging to MAGA beliefs and voting
MAGA because of the fear mongering done by organizations like
Fox News who convinced them that their enemies of each other,
while the Christian or Catholic white man is like the
champion of this particular affliction. And now they are slowly

(17:32):
trying to make it where pedophilia ain't even a big deal.
Rams and I heard MAGA supporters explain away that even
if Trump is in the Epstein files. Even if he
is a pedophile, even if he frustrated a pedophile ring,
he's still the leader that this country needs. That should

(17:55):
be terrifying to everybody.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
I'm gonna have to get back to you on the
breakdown of how many child molesters are white men, because
there's conflicting numbers and I want to make sure I
get the most accurate number for you. So we'll circle
back to that. But let's move on in the meantime
to entertainment. Let's talk about Jimmy Kimmel getting his Italian
citizenship just in case. All right, I'm going to share

(18:23):
an article from Variety. Okay, it starts. Is Jimmy Kimmel
preparing to leave the United States amid Donald Trump's presidency,
perhaps not giving his commitment to ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live,
but he's certainly giving himself an exit plan if needed
by obtaining Italian citizenship this year. Celebrities such as Rosie
O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres fled the US last fall after

(18:44):
Trump defeated Kamala Harrison the presidential election. Kimmell confirmed on
the Sarah Silverman podcast that a door is open for
him to follow suit. Quote, A lot of people I
know are thinking about where they are going to get
citizenship unquote, Silverman said about the reaction Trump, quote, I
did get Italian citizenship unquote. Kimmel replied, goes on to say,

(19:06):
what's going on with Trump is as bad as you
thought it was going to be, so much worse. It's
just unbelievable. I feel like it's probably even worse than
he would like it to be unquote. So no need
to get any deeper there. That's kind of a self
explanatory excuse me, um move that he made. You know,

(19:31):
he's got a family, He's a person that tells the truth.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
He points out Donald Trump's flaws and shortcomings and failures
and people laugh. And Donald Trump has been given the
powers of a king. So you know, those that watch
Game of Thrones and recognize King Joffrey tendencies know that
Donald Trump is probably not above you know, bring me

(19:58):
his head U. So Jimmy Kimmel saying, you know what,
let me make sure that I got an exit strategy
in place, feels like, you know, a man just making
sure that his family's going to be okay. And in
case that off with his head command, you know, comes

(20:19):
down from the mountaintop. So I know that I know
that you're going to have a lot to say about this.
I don't want to stay your brief here, Q. I
know there's some things going on in your life, some
things you're looking toward. I know that because I'm looking
toward the same things. But I want to give you

(20:39):
the time to kind of reflect on this move by
Jimmy Kimmel and how it might make sense, might not
make sense, whatever your take is. I suspect I know, but.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
I can relate.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
I am very personally affected by this idea, and I
wish I had the resources, the money that Jimmy Kimmel had,
so that I could actively start the visa process to
go somewhere else and work and or live where my

(21:17):
children would be safe, or my family wouldn't be safe,
or we wouldn't have to worry about being snatched up
off the street because of how we look, or the
languages we speak, the jobs we work, the clothes we wear,
the neighborhoods we live in, the god we pray to
the person, we love, the color of our skin, our accent,

(21:37):
or because we simply disagree with the people in charge.
So as affected as I am by this and as
really just comprehensibly brain melting this entire post Trump reelection
experience has been, there's some benefits that I'm trying to

(21:59):
lean into. You know, my family, all except for me,
have dual citizenship. I'm trying to get them to lean
into that and take advantage of that while I figure
my part out.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Of course, they don't want that. They don't want to
be away from Daddy.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
They want that most optimum outcome, and they're not understanding
like most people I know, like most people that are
listening to us, we don't have the option for optimal
and perfect right now. We also don't have the option
of waiting to mess around and find out all of

(22:43):
the worst things you can imagine are already here. They're
not en route, they're not coming soon. They're not just
being planned. They're being executed, and they're being wrapped and
covered with distractions and words like crime and waves of
immigrants and broken borders, and they're eating the cats and

(23:07):
they're eating the dogs and all these ridiculous things, so
that they have kind of public permission to violate your
rights in the name of keeping you safe. And as
we keep giving green lights and kind of public permission
and pre compliance to all of these racist, authoritarian, dictator like,

(23:31):
fascist like ideas, all of our lives are less free,
all of our lives are less safe. So once again,
I am trying to get those that I care about
that have the option to go, live, work, and have

(23:51):
some sort of day to day autonomy and safety to
take advantage of that. As the leader of the house,
the man of the house, the head of household, it's
hard to get those that I care about most to
separate from me, to go and be safe while I
figure it out, because I don't trust the idea of
them being here while I figure it out. Every day

(24:15):
we're taking for granted that the worst outcome won't happen.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
It's not something that I'm okay with.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Man, So your brother is having a daily fight right
now because I am trying to get it. Sounds crazy,
but I'm trying to get those I love away from here.
But that means away from me. And I'm also the breadwinner.
So it's a tough thing. But I would feel so
much better. I would be able to work with so
much more mental clarity, not worrying about if my kids

(24:43):
will make it home from school, or their mother from
the grocery store or from visiting her family, because our
country is being turned into something that I don't recognize,
and the hypernormalization that everyone practicing right now, because everybody's
getting up every day, getting dressed and going to work
like it's normal, and it is not normal.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Well, as someone who has also looked into acquiring some
additional land in a foreign country, you know, I recognize
how important that is. Just in case. You know, now,

(25:31):
you and I we like to think that, you know,
the type of programming that we make is protected because
of the First Amendment the Constitution. The First Amendment is
first for a reason. Who likes to think that I do.
I'll say, like to copy that. Sorry, And you know

(25:51):
this is kind of something that you know, elementary school
children learn, right. The Constitution has been here since the beginning,
and it will continue to be here whether or not
this administration follows or respects or acknowledges that that fundamental

(26:12):
right exists in this country for all of its citizens
and non citizens. That is something that obviously has concerned
Jimmy Kimmel because again, historically, you know, freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, that sort of thing, you can

(26:32):
criticize your government. It's been a longstanding value that this
society has espoused, particularly so by white males, because once
upon a time, you know, speaking ill of the king
would result in sort of an off with your head moment, right,

(26:57):
And you know, getting someone's job, taking them taken away
is akin to to killing them. I think Dave Chappelle
said something like that, it's not nearly as bad because
people can recover from that, but it's a deep, deep wound.
But I even think that we're probably past that, you know.

(27:21):
I think you're right. You know, it's nothing for people
to just snatch you off the street, question your citizenship
and whether or not you're a citizen, do what they
want with you, because there's nobody stopping anybody from doing anything.
And so to a person like Jimmy Kimmel, even with
his high profile, recognizing that this is a different reality,

(27:45):
you know, my hope is that he'll never have to
move anywhere. You know, nobody wants that. He seems like
a decent enough man, same for me and same for you.
But you know, being prepared for it seems responsible. So
I'm not mad at him. So good luck and godspeed
wherever that. With that in mind, we're going to leave
the show right here. Thank you, as always for tuning
in to the QR Code. Today's show, as always, was

(28:08):
produced by the one and only Chris Thompson. If you
have any thoughts you'd like to share, please use the
red microphone talkback feature on the iHeartRadio app, and while
you're there, you can also hit subscribe and download all
of our episodes. Also, big shout out to everybody that's
been comedy. We have like a couple of videos going
viral right now because the notifications are blown up, so
everybody that does follow us and comments, we appreciate you.

(28:30):
Also follow us on YouTube at Civic Cipher and on
all of the other platforms at Civic Cipher as well.
I've been your host Ramsy's job. You can find me
on all platforms as ramses Ja.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
I am q Ward on all social media as well,
and again we appreciate you all of you that have
been following, and be sure to join us next time
as we share our news with our voice from our
perspective right here on the QR Code.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Peace,