A Queens pastor was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for raping two girls in the basement of his church, Nydailynews reports.
Reuben Chizor’s victims were 12- and 14-year-old sisters and members of his Hope Restoration Ministries congregation in Queens Village. “The defendant took advantage of his position as a man of the cloth and the trust placed in him by his followers to satisfy his depraved desires.
Through manipulation and conniving control, he sexually abused his two young victims for nearly two years,” Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
“What the defendant forced his victims to endure was horrendous — and as punishment he now will be spending a lengthy term behind bars.” Trial testimony last month revealed that on July 27, 2011, Chizor took the 14-year-old victim to the church basement, where he lived, and raped her.
On Aug. 22, 2011, he raped the 12-year-old. Chizor, 56, continued abusing one or both of the girls through May 2013, Brown said.
In July 2015, the girls confided in each other they’d been raped by Chizor, and police were notified.