Trial of Lancaster city Jehovah’s Witness member accused of molestation begins
Jose Antonio Serrano
Lancaster County PrisonEditor's note: A jury acquitted Serrano on Tuesday. Also, the name of Serrano's daughter has been removed from this article to protect her privacy.
The daughter of a Jehovah’s Witness elder told a Lancaster County Court jury Monday that her father sexually abused her for five years in the 1990s when she was a young child.
The daughter testified that her father, Jose A. Serrano, 70, of the 400 block of Poplar Street in Lancaster, molested her from the time she was 3 years old until she was 8.
LNP | LancasterOnline typically does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault, however the AG's office said Serrano's daughter had agreed to be identified.
The attorney general charged Serrano in 2022 along with three other Jehovah’s Witness elders from other Pennsylvania counties. He is charged with aggravated indecent assault and two related offenses.
In his opening statement, Deputy Attorney General Zach Wynkoop, the lead prosecutor, painted a picture of a child who was abused by her family. Her father would molest her, and her mother, who Wynkoop said knew about the abuse, would not protect her. They homeschooled when she reached third grade, isolating her from other kids.
Wynkoop said the daughter repeatedly told authorities about being molested by her father, calling Lancaster Children and Youth Services to report physical abuse at age 13, and later, as an adult, talking to Lancaster city police.
Serrano’s public defender, Samuel Encarnacion, portrayed the daughter as vengeful, saying she had “waged a war” against her father, trying to incriminate him multiple times over the years.
Serrano attempted to poke holes in the daughter's testimony, saying she did not report any sexual abuse when she called Children and Youth and only took her accusations to police 18 years after the alleged abuse ended. He also said she failed to get a protection from abuse order against her parents in Maryland, where she lives.
In her testimony, the daughter corroborated Wynkoop’s timeline of events and said she remembered Serrano molesting her on five occasions. She said she did not tell Children and Youth about the sexual abuse when she called as a teenager because she wanted to see how seriously her allegations of physical abuse would be taken.
“I didn’t think anyone would believe me,” the daughter testified.
The daughter said she approached police after spending time with a therapist and remembering the abuse from a repressed memory.
Encarnacion said the daughter's story has changed over the years, including new details and allegations she did not cite when she initially talked to police.
Encarnacion showed the daughter was not honest about her age when she went to police and was inconsistent in reporting how many times she was abused.
Judge Thomas Sponaugle is overseeing the trial, which is expected to run through Wednesday.
According to court records and newspaper archives, Serrano pleaded guilty in 1993 to two counts of indecent assault involving two girls, 13 and 15, in Willow Street, in 1992. He was placed on probation for five years and ordered to pay the girls’ medical and counseling costs and was required to attend a sex offenders program.