HERMITAGE, Pa. -  A man who is already a convicted sex offender now faces 53 charges for alleged sex crimes committed against 11 boys when he was a youth pastor at a Mercer County church.

Mark Heotzler, 29, is serving a three-to-23-month jail sentence in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where he was convicted in March of unlawful contact with a minor.

The new charges stem from alleged incidents involving eleven males, all of whom were under the age of 18 when they occurred between 2015 and 2021, according to a criminal complaint filed by Pennsylvania State Police investigators.

One alleged victim told police he was 13 years old when Heotzler took him to his home and had the boy disrobe and ride on Heotzler’s back. The boy said the two also played video games with their genitals exposed.  The same boy said that two years later, Heotzler took him to his office and rubbed his genitals against the boy’s genitals.

All 11 alleged victims claim to have seen images of Heotzler’s genitals.  Some say they received videos of Heotzler engaged in a sex act.  In some cases, Heotzler allegedly asked the boys to send him inappropriate videos or pictures, most of which were transmitted via the social media platform Snapchat.

According to the complaint, Heotzler has confessed to most of the incidents.

The criminal complaint does not name the church where Heotzler was a youth pastor at the time.  However, Heotzler’s Linked-In account says he became a youth pastor in 2014 at Grace Chapel Community Church in Hermitage.

Grace Chapel lead pastor, Aaron Lego released the following statement:

“Grace Chapel is and has been cooperating fully with an active and ongoing criminal investigation with state law enforcement. Mark Heotzler worked at Grace Chapel as youth minister from May 2014 to April of 2019.  In light of the ongoing criminal investigation, Grace Chapel is unable to advance more details at the present time.  Although saddened by these charges, Grace Chapel Community Church remains deeply concerned for all those affected and remains committed to working through this difficult time, confident that God’s grace will sustain us.”

Heotzler has not yet been arraigned on the new charges which include photographing or filming sex acts for children, child pornography, soliciting a sex act from children, disseminating explicit sexual material to a minor, sexual assault by an employee of a non-profit, corruption of minors, unlawful contact with a minor,  and sex abuse.

All but 12 of the 53 charges are felonies.