EASTERN PA. Street preacher is accused of soliciting sex

The preacher's lawyer said his client only asked the boy for directions.
WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) -- A preacher who has spent years using a bullhorn to rile at passers-by on college campuses about "fornicators," "whores" and "sodomites" is accused by a 14-year-old boy of soliciting a sex act.
The boy told police that the Rev. C. Stephen White, 40, of North Philadelphia, offered him money to perform oral sex on him.
White declined to comment at his arraignment Thursday, but defense lawyer J. Michael Considine Jr. said his client maintains he only asked the boy for directions.
"In all the years I've known him, there's never been any hint ever of going to strip clubs, wanting to have sex with boys, looking at pornography or soliciting sex," Considine said. "I'm shocked, and I believe that he is innocent."
The boy told police that a stranger drove up beside him on the street in West Chester on June 26 and asked him if he knew of any strip clubs or adult bookstores. Soon after that, he said, the man offered to pay him to commit the act.
The boy told police that he said no and walked away, then repeated the license plate number of the stranger's car to himself as he ran to his aunt's house.
The license plate number was later traced to White, and the boy identified the man who approached him from White's driver's license photo.
White was taken to Chester County Prison on Thursday after failing to post $100,000 cash bail.
"Our concern is that because he is a reverend and deals with youth, there may be other victims out there," West Chester Police Detective Stan Billie said.
Considine said White was in West Chester that day to discuss a lawsuit he has filed against the Philadelphia Police Department about several arrests for his preaching.
White has been a fixture on the University of Pennsylvania campus since the early 1990s and also preaches to passers-by at other campuses in Philadelphia and elsewhere.