Former Haiti missionary pleads guilty to child sex abuse

Jeriah Mast, 45, of Millersburg, Ohio, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to two counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with minors in Haiti. Mast visited Haiti many times from 2002 to 2019 as a missionary, according to the Justice Department. Some of the trips were with Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, an international humanitarian and missionary organization. Mast was earlier convicted in 2019 at the state level for similar charges.

Christian Aid Ministries in 2019 said that it fired Mast. It also put two managers on administrative leave pending an investigation. Christian Aid Ministries said the managers knew of the abuse allegations in Haiti against Mast, but failed to properly investigate his conduct, according to a report by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The missions organization did not immediately respond on Wednesday morning to WORLD’s request for comment on Mast’s guilty plea.

Mast was originally federally indicted on four counts of illicit sexual conduct, which prosecutors said stemmed from heinous acts against four separate children. It was unclear whether his charges were reduced via a plea deal or for other reasons. He was convicted and sentenced for two similar charges at the state level in 2019, for which he received a nine-year prison sentence, according to Ohio’s offender registry.

Mast’s federal sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 15, according to the Justice Department.

Dig deeper: Read my report on a recent increase in killings and sexual violence in Haiti.