CASTLETON - No one conducted a background check when a small church in southwestern Vermont hired a pastor in 2010, a Burlington Free Press investigation has found.

They did not ask — and the new pastor did not tell them — that he had once been accused of sexually exploiting a teenage girl in Pennsylvania, where he was a teacher at a Christian high school in the 1990s. The pastor, John Longaker, pleaded guilty to two crimes against children and served about one year in prison.

Longaker's employer at the time of his arrest told police that Longaker had admitted to fondling and having oral sex with the girl, according to Pennsylvania court records. In an interview with the Burlington Free Press, Longaker denied that he ever confessed and said he is innocent of the criminal conduct to which he pleaded guilty.

None of that history came to light in the hiring process at Fellowship Bible Church, a Castleton congregation that draws about 90 people to Sunday services and operates independently from any church denomination, according to Longaker and one of the church's elders.

National experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, say conducting a background check is a must when hiring someone working in organizations that serve children.

Since they were told in 2014 of Longaker's criminal convictions, church leaders have continued to stand by their pastor. They say they believe Longaker pleaded guilty to crimes he did not commit.

"The Lord has appointed him as pastor, and the Lord will remove him. Not anyone else," said Don Wood, an elder at the church, in a telephone interview. Wood said he has known Longaker for 12 years and has never witnessed or been told of any impropriety.

In an interview with the Free Press, Longaker said he pleaded guilty in 1998 to the two misdemeanor charges in an attempt to avoid prison time.

RELATED: A timeline of accusations against Longaker, and his criminal convictions

"God has known my past, God has known the kind of person that I am," Longaker said. "And if he did not want me in this job, I would not be in this job."

Terence Houck, the Pennsylvania prosecutor who handled Longaker's case in Bucks County, said he is concerned that Longaker is back in a position of authority, especially over children. After hearing from the Free Press that Longaker failed during the hiring process to disclose his criminal record to the Vermont church, Houck said omission of one's criminal record can signal a lack of rehabilitation.

"If there's anyone in that congregation with small children, I'd be worried as hell," Houck said. Houck now serves as the First Deputy District Attorney in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

When asked in a Jan. 4 interview about whether his failure to disclose his convictions indicates a risk, Longaker said, "My reaction to that is, ask anybody in my congregation who has small children. And I have several."

Wood said most of the congregation has supported Longaker since his convictions were disclosed, but one family left the church as a result.

'He really seemed to care'

The conduct to which the pastor pleaded guilty stemmed from his time as a teacher between 1992 and 1996 at Faith Christian Academy in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, a borough about 30 miles north of Philadelphia.

Longaker, who was a business teacher, developed a close relationship with student Kelly Haines, they both said in separate interviews with the Burlington Free Press. They disagree about the timeline surrounding the relationship and about whether they engaged in sexual acts. The Burlington Free Press contacted Haines, now 40, after she shared her story with a blog devoted to publicizing alleged church abuse.

Haines said Longaker was her teacher in an Intro to Computers class in ninth grade. She shared documents she said came from the school that outline the classes in which she had Longaker as a teacher.

Haines eventually began meeting with Longaker for counseling, she said.

"I slowly began to feel more and more comfortable with telling him about my emotional issues," Haines wrote in an account of their relationship that she also shared with the Free Press. "He really seemed to care."

Haines began to notice Longaker touching her. When she was in 11th grade, the touching became more sexual, she said in an interview.

Longaker was married and had a child, according to a 1997 news report in Pennyslvania's The Morning Call.

Haines told police about a year after her high school graduation about oral sex and other sex acts with Longaker that happened in classrooms, at Longaker's home and in his car, according to court records from the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas.

Longaker, when tracked down for an interview at his Castleton church, denied teaching Haines prior to the 11th grade. He said they began to grow closer when Haines approached him regarding a possible pregnancy tied to a relationship with another teenager.

Before then, he said, Haines wanted nothing to do with him.

When asked why he thought Haines chose to go to him, Longaker said he wasn't sure.

"I was a pretty popular teacher," Longaker said. "I had a lot of students coming to me all the time, both boys and girls. So I guess I was just the natural one to talk to, I don't know."

Haines also babysat for Longaker's family, and the two drove together alone in a car, Longaker said. He denies any sexual contact, such as oral sex or fondling.

"Looking back on it, I let her get attached to me," Longaker said. "And I should not have allowed that."

Longaker said Haines visited him during her first year of college after he moved to a new school in Massachusetts. He believes she became jealous, which led to what he characterizes as false allegations.

About a year after she graduated, Haines told an acquaintance about sexual contact with Longaker, and the man alerted police in Pennsylvania. Longaker was living in New Hampshire and teaching at a Christian school in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, at the time of his arrest in October 1997, court records show.

His employer at Twin City Baptist Church and two other men told police that Longaker, when confronted, admitted to a sexual relationship with Haines, according to the Pennridge Regional police report submitted to the court. Longaker said the Massachusetts school fired him that same day.

Longaker said in an interview that he does not remember the details of the conversation with his Massachusetts employer. But, he said he never confessed to any sexual relationship and that the account of his confession that ended up in the police report is fabricated.

"Somebody's lying," Longaker said. "I'm thinking it was the detective because, again, if I said what they say I said, the charges would have been a lot more severe."

Multiple attempts to reach the two witnesses to that conversation still living were unsuccessful. The only living detective of two who had been assigned to the case declined comment, citing lack of access to case files. Prosecutor Houck said he would not have taken the case if he suspected any fabrication.

When confronted during an interview about several other accusations involving young females, Longaker acknowledged that he had been accused, but he denied any sexual misconduct. Haines' case is the only one to reach criminal court.

Longaker pleaded guilty to two low-level charges

Longaker was charged in October 1997 with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault, both of which referred to conduct with a person younger than 16. Each count carried a maximum 20-year prison sentence.

Pennyslvania prosecutors also charged him with three other criminal counts, including indecent assault against a person younger than 16, corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children.

A month later, Haines testified in court that the sexual acts began when she was older than 16, the age of consent in Pennsylvania, according to a news report at the time in The Morning Call. A judge dismissed the felony charges and one misdemeanor in light of the testimony.

"That was lawful, certainly not appropriate, certainly not moral, but not illegal," Longaker's attorney, Peter Hileman, said of his client's relationship with Haines, according to The Morning Call report.

About three months after he was arrested, Longaker pleaded guilty to the two remaining misdemeanor charges: corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children.

Court records show that by pleading guilty, he was admitting to "violating a duty of care, protection or support" and corrupting the morals of a child or encouraging that child to commit a crime.

Longaker told the Free Press he was admitting that he let Haines get too close. He also wanted to avoid prison.

"I wish I hadn't listened to my attorney," Longaker said in an interview Jan. 4. "I wish I'd gone to trial. But again ... when it was probation or five years, it was just a scary thing."

Attempts to reach Hileman, Longaker's lawyer in the case, at multiple phone numbers were unsuccessful. The second time the Free Press tried to reach him at a law firm that listed him on its website as an attorney, a secretary said that Hileman had retired.

A Pennsylvania judge sentenced Longaker to 11 ½ months in prison, court records show. Longaker appealed the sentence, but his request was denied.

Longaker was not placed on the sex-offender registry, according to Houck.

Longaker was granted parole and released from prison in early January 1999, court records show. He says he served another 11 ½ months on probation while still in Pennsylvania.

Less than two years after Longaker completed his probation, he moved to Vermont and started attending Fellowship Bible Church. He began teaching Sunday-morning adult Bible studies in 2003, church elder Wood said. He was hired seven years later as pastor.

Wood said the pastoral search committee who eventually chose Longaker saw no need to request a criminal background check or call references. The lack of vetting in Longaker's case was an exception to what would typically be done for other job candidates, Wood added.

"We didn't think it was necessary for John," Wood said. "It would have been necessary if it was somebody that we had no knowledge of."

Longaker, who served as chairman of that pastoral search committee, said he felt conflicted because of his convictions when other members of the committee raised his name as a possible candidate. He initially said no.

After speaking with his family and praying, Longaker took the job. He said he withheld his convictions from the church because his wife was concerned about how the information would affect their teenage son.

"Things were going exactly as I wanted them to go," Longaker said. "I wanted people to know me as who I was, and not based on these allegations about me before. They knew who I was, and they had no hesitation."

Voting members of Fellowship Bible Church unanimously approved Longaker as pastor in 2010, Wood said.

Expert: Background checks 'absolutely critical'

Pennsylvania prosecutor Houck, who spent a decade prosecuting sex crimes against children in Bucks County, says that people who "groom" victims are likely to offend again.

"This type of behavior is in you," Houck said. He added, regarding Longaker, "There's no middle ground with someone like him."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that organizations that serve youth should rigorously screen all job candidates.

"Do not make exceptions for people you know or have worked with in the past," the CDC cautions in a child sexual abuse prevention guide for organizations.

Or, as Houck put it, "What's the harm in doing your due diligence?"

MORE: Here's how your church or organization can avoid hiring a leader with a history of child abuse.

Boz Tchividjian, a former sex crimes prosecutor who leads a Virginia-based organization called GRACE dedicated to preventing abuse in churches, says a background check is "absolutely critical" for vetting a pastoral candidate.

In their book, "The Child Safeguarding Policy Guide for Churches and Ministries," Tchividjian and co-author Shira M. Berkovits call a background check a "basic minimum precaution."

Tchividjian and Berkovits write that "a church that neglects to conduct background checks may unintentionally hire a known offender, and in so doing place its children in danger and itself at risk for a negligent-hiring lawsuit."

Tchividjian also encourages church leaders to review the candidate's social media history, to call references and ask those references for additional names, and perhaps to track down any police reports in towns where the candidate has lived.

Church accepts pastor's explanation of guilty pleas

About five years ago, Haines learned that Longaker was serving as a pastor in Vermont and reached out to members of the congregation, sharing links to news articles about her case. None of those members replied.

Internally, the elders considered the news and spoke with Longaker "at great length," Wood said. Longaker denied having any sexual relationship with Haines. The elders ultimately considered the case to be unfounded allegations and did not inform the congregation.

Longaker said he offered to resign after Haines' emails, but church leaders said it wasn't necessary.

Wood said that even if he had known of Longaker's convictions during the hiring process, it would not have changed his decision.

At the advice of her current pastor, Haines told her story this past fall on a blog devoted to publicizing church abuse, the Wartburg Watch. Several other bloggers also picked up the story.

Longaker said in January that he regrets keeping his convictions a secret because of the recent publicity.

"That's ultimately been my concern from day one of this thing is, I do not want to hurt the church, and I will do whatever the church wants me to do," Longaker said.

In the wake of the publicity, Wood said Fellowship Bible Church set a policy: Any time Longaker is meeting with anyone one-on-one in his office, there must be a third person in the immediate vicinity. Wood said the pastor's office door can be closed for confidentiality, with the third person sitting across the hall.

Longaker said the policy was not new, and he has only once in Castleton provided one-on-one counseling to a girl younger than 16. He says he never closed the door during their sessions.

Haines still lives in Pennsylvania and has daughters of her own. She works at a health care company as an outreach specialist. None of the elders from Fellowship Bible Church had yet reached out to her about her story as of Jan. 15.

Haines said her goal in speaking up is to help protect the Vermont church — not to ruin Longaker's reputation.

"Even from the day he was being sentenced, he was still pointing the finger at me and blaming me," Haines said. "He hasn't even shown me that he is even repentant or worthy of forgiveness. It's a lack of taking responsibility for what he did."

Contact April McCullum at 802-660-1863 or amccullum@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @April_McCullum. Contact Elizabeth Murray at 651-4835 or emurray@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizMurrayBFP.