Minister accused of groping woman he was counseling, police say

SALISBURY, N.C. — Police in Salisbury have charged a local minister with sexually assaulting a woman whom he was counseling.

Police arrested the Rev. Kenneth Darrell Worley Tuesday and charged him with misdemeanor sexual battery more than three months after the woman said he groped her in her home in Salisbury.

“I kick myself now, but he seemed so trustworthy,” the woman told Eyewitness News on Wednesday.

She said she met Worley in the waiting room of a local hospital where she was having a medical procedure, and he suggested that he could counsel her further at her home.

She said they spoke for about two hours at her kitchen table, but as he got up to leave, he asked if he could give her a hug, then pushed her down onto her couch.

“He started sticking his tongue in my ear, licking on my neck. He was groping me,” she said.

She got free and called police, but the investigation took more than three months before officers signed a warrant charging Worley with misdemeanor assault.

A spokesman at New Hope Baptist Church in Salisbury said Wednesday that officials there were not ready to comment, but Worley is still the senior pastor there.

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