{"id":160081,"date":"2026-02-18T17:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/160081\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T17:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:42:11","slug":"miami-pastor-arrested-for-inappropriately-touching-teen-girl-sheriffs-office-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/160081\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami pastor arrested for inappropriately touching teen girl, sheriff’s office says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pastor of a Miami church has been arrested after he was accused of inappropriately touching and trying to repeatedly kiss a 15-year-old girl, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the sheriff’s office, the victim told deputies that the suspect, who is a pastor at her church<\/a>, “fondled her buttocks, rubbed her thigh, and attempted to kiss her on several occasions.”<\/p>\n

The victim said that the incident took place at Theophile Church, located at 15201 Northwest 7th Avenue in Miami<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office said that the teen’s mother also reported that she read inappropriate text messages that the suspect, who has since been identified as 50-year-old Elco Vallier, allegedly sent to her daughter, which “caused her concern.”<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office said that Special Victims Unit detectives were able to obtain an arrest warrant for Vallier, who lives in Loxahatchee, which is west of Palm Beach.<\/p>\n

With the assistance of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, Vallier was arrested for the Miami-Dade<\/a> warrant.<\/p>\n

The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said that anyone with information, or any parents who have children that may have come into contact with Vallier, to call investigators at (305) 715-3300.<\/p>\n

Investigators said that Vallier was charged with Lewd or Lascivious Molestation; Lewd or Lascivious Conduct.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pastor of a Miami church has been arrested after he was accused of inappropriately touching and trying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2302,265,123,125,124,1064,40968,807],"class_list":{"0":"post-160081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-church","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-news","13":"tag-miami-dade","14":"tag-miami-dade-sheriff039s-office","15":"tag-south-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}