Norman "Ted" Faux — United Methodist Church, Lake Ariel

A United Methodist pastor in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, who pleaded guilty to incest with a minor and corruption of minors in the abuse of a boy beginning at age 9, and was sentenced on July 27, 2015, to 27 months to 15 years. Upgraded October 22, 2026 from the sentencing record reached through his Protestant Accountability profile.

Mainline Protestant Convicted

Person: Norman "Ted" Faux
Role: Pastor
Institution: United Methodist Church, Lake Ariel, Pennsylvania
Location: Wayne County, Pennsylvania
Status: Convicted
Sentence: 27 months to 15 years (imposed July 27, 2015)

Case in brief

Tier 1 · Court-proven

Norman “Ted” Faux was a United Methodist pastor in Wayne County, Pennsylvania. He abused a boy beginning at age 9 for approximately a decade, much of it while serving as pastor, and later plied him with drugs for sex; the New York Daily News reported he was HIV positive during the abuse. First Assistant Wayne County District Attorney Pat Robinson called him “one of the most manipulative defendants I’ve ever dealt with.” Faux pleaded guilty to incest with a minor and corruption of minors and was sentenced on July 27, 2015, to 27 months to 15 years in state prison.

The institution

The United Methodist Church — Faux served congregations across northeastern Pennsylvania, including Lake Ariel and Centenary (Hamlin) in Wayne County and, earlier, Courtdale, Waverly, Factoryville, Chinchilla and Elm Park (Scranton), among the appointments listed on his Protestant Accountability profile. The Susquehanna Conference suspended him on July 8, 2010, and in June 2011, facing a church trial on abuse allegations, he surrendered his clergy credentials; the conference did not publicly detail those allegations, and whether they concern the same victim as the criminal case is not established in the reporting (Pocono Record, June 29, 2011). No institutional-knowledge finding was made in the criminal case, which was an individual prosecution.

The record

Tier 1 · Court-proven — as reported

Disposition: guilty plea to incest with a minor and corruption of minors, as documented in the sentencing coverage linked from his Protestant Accountability profile (New York Daily News, July 28, 2015; The Times-Tribune; The River Reporter).
Sentence: 27 months to 15 years (180 months) in state prison, imposed July 27, 2015 by Judge Russell D. Shurtleff, Wayne County Court, Honesdale; Faux was also ordered to pay for the victim’s counseling, up to $5,000 (River Reporter).
Sexually violent predator finding: Judge Shurtleff found Faux to be a sexually violent predator under Pennsylvania’s registration framework (River Reporter, July 29, 2015).
The offenses (as reported): sexual abuse of a boy beginning at age 9, continuing for roughly a decade, later including drugs supplied in exchange for sex. State police arrested Faux in August 2014 after the victim, then 19, reported the abuse (Times-Tribune).

Open questions

Tier 3 · Open questions

The count-by-count charges beyond the two plea counts, and Faux’s current custody status, are not in the reporting retrieved for this file and are not guessed at here.
Whether the allegations behind the 2010 conference suspension and the 2011 credential surrender concern the same victim as the criminal case is not established in the reporting.

Records requested & responses

This archive has not filed records requests in this case. The file rests on the published sources below and will be updated if court or institutional records are obtained, or if that changes.

Sources

Protestant Accountability profile — Norman (Ted) Faux; the documentation index for this upgrade: protestantaccountability.org
New York Daily News, “Former minister gets prison for decade-long sex abuse of boy” (Sasha Goldstein, July 28, 2015), via BishopAccountability.org: bishop-accountability.org
The Times-Tribune (Scranton), sentencing report (July 27, 2015): thetimes-tribune.com
The River Reporter (Narrowsburg, N.Y.), “Ex-pastor sentenced for incest with minor” (July 29, 2015): riverreporter.com
WNEP-TV sentencing coverage (July 2015), as quoted in the Daily News report.
Pocono Record, “Pastor due church trial in Wayne Co. sex abuse case resigns” (June 29, 2011), via BishopAccountability.org: bishop-accountability.org

Update — October 22, 2026: this file originally rested on a single news report (the New York Daily News, via BishopAccountability.org) and said plainly that the retrieved reporting was limited. It has been upgraded with the verified record — the guilty plea; the July 27, 2015 sentencing to 27 months to 15 years before Judge Russell D. Shurtleff; the sexually-violent-predator finding and the counseling order; and the 2010 conference suspension and 2011 credential surrender — drawn from the Times-Tribune and River Reporter sentencing reports and the Pocono Record, reached through the documentation linked from his Protestant Accountability profile. What remains unverified is labeled as such above.

Filed October 18, 2026, from the published sources below. Minor victims are never named or identified in this file.