A Mt. Pleasant Township man and member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses was arrested Wednesday in connection with sex assault accusations involving two children decades ago in Unity, according to court papers.
Timothy A. Willochell, 54, is accused of molesting the children on separate occasions between 1989 and 1997. The accusations did not happen at locations connected to the religious group.
He is charged with aggravated indecent assault, corruption of minors, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and related offenses. At his arraignment Wednesday, bail was set at $170,000 total in two cases.
Willochell was the 17th member of the religious group to be charged with sexual assault offenses by the state attorney general since 2022 as a grand jury has been hearing testimony related to allegations by members of Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations.
“This defendant preyed on two children, waiting for opportunities to assault them when they were alone and at their most vulnerable,” Attorney General Dave Sunday said in a statement. “I commend the victims for their bravery in coming forward, and applaud grand jurors who continue to diligently hear testimony as part of a comprehensive investigation of criminal conduct involving members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses community.”
One of the accusers testified before the grand jury that Willochell sexually assaulted her four or five times when she was 5 and 6 years old, according to court papers.
The other accuser said he was sexually assaulted by Willochell twice over a four-year period when he was about 6 to 10 years old, authorities said. He testified before the grand jury that he first disclosed the allegations last year.
Willochell did not have an attorney listed in online court records. He was being held at the Westmoreland County Prison. A July 21 preliminary hearing is set.
The ongoing grand jury probe began with a 2019 referral from a county prosecutor who felt the state should take a broader look at the issue.
Locally, trials for Ronald Mangone, 70, of Lower Burrell, and Roger Zellars, 69, of Pittsburgh’s Garfield neighborhood, are pending, said Brett Hambright, spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
According to a criminal complaint, Mangone’s family was actively involved in the New Kensington Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation and later in the West End French congregation.
Mangone is accused of sexually assaulting a girl in the 1990s when she was between 5 and 8 years old. Trial is tentatively scheduled for October, according to court records.
Zellars is accused of sexually assaulting a girl when she was 9 and 10 years old in 1992 and 1993, according to court papers. An August nonjury trial is tentatively scheduled.
A Butler County jury in June sentenced Shaun Sheffer, 47, of Harmony, to 14 to 34 years in prison for sexually assaulting a child, beginning when the victim was 7 years old, between 1995 and 2000, according to the attorney general’s office.
In March, Marc Brown, 66, of Pittsburgh, was sentenced in Allegheny County Court to 12 to 30 years in state prison for repeated sexual abuse of two children between 2004 and 2006.