Pastor Mark Hooper and his wife Susan Hooper, entered pleas of no contest to charges that they deliberately underfed their adopted children.
An initial state police investigation showed that the couple allegedly underfed and withheld meals from their children, ages 9 to 11, as punishment. Police said they started looking into the couple after their youngest child ran away from home in February and told a neighbor about the lack of food and the punishments.
McKean County District Attorney Ray Learn said the plea deal spares the children from testifying at trial. Attorneys for the Hooper’s said the plea deal is the best outcome for the couple.
Source: Elk Co. pastor and wife make plea in child endangerment case
Mark Hooper was the pastor at Cobb Street Baptist Church Johnsonburg, Elk County.
In case you think that this case is an overreach, please consider that the daughter weighted all of 32 pounds at the time she was rescued from this nutballs. She was nine. Said claimed food was withheld whenever she did poorly in math.
One would think that school officials would have recognize the problem and report it, but the kids were homeschooled with no outside oversight. I have no problem with homeschooling children if the parents are qualified and if there is oversight. That’s not the case with these religious nutballs. They are free to do anything they wish and accountable to none.
Everything about this case is wrong. The Hoopers are horrible examples of humanity. I’m all for holding pastors to a higher level of scrutiny. if they fall like Hooper did, then public shaming and a long prison sentence is justified. The Hoopers must be held accountable. Letting them plead felonies down to misdomenors is the wrong approach. They should have stood trial and then they should have spent a few years in prison. All the prosecutor need do is show photos of the kids and the jury would put them away for 30 years.
