by Sam Borcia

A leader at a church in Winthrop Harbor was arrested and gave a full admission that he repeatedly sexually assaulted a child, beginning when she was as young as six years old and spanning years.

Greg R. Douma, 58, of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, was charged with one count of repeated sexual assault of a child, three counts of first-degree child sexual assault and one count of incest.

The Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin Police Department responded on November 23 to the 9100 block of 39th Avenue in Pleasant Prairie to meet with a DCFS worker for a report of a sexual abuse allegation at the residence.

Police learned the female victim was a patient at a mental health hospital where she told staff that she had been sexually abused by a relative, identified as Douma, according to a criminal complaint.

The child, who is under the age of 13, said that Douma was “doing things to her that make babies.”

The girl was transported to the child advocacy centre for an interview on December 3.

The victim told investigators that when she was six or seven years old, Douma asked her if she wanted to watch something on a phone, the complaint said.

The girl said she was obsessed with watching kitchen videos at the time. She laid on the bed on her stomach watching the videos on the phone, and Douma sexually assaulted her, the complaint said.

The victim explained to investigators in detail how it occurred and said that it continued to happen because she “got to watch videos, and he got to do his… You know when men and women put private to private, and it makes them feel good.”

The complaint said Douma told the girl that he should not do that and that it was illegal, while saying to the girl that if she told anyone, then his wife would divorce him.

The assaults continued for years until she was approximately 12 years old.

The child told investigators that she called Douma this month and he asked her not to tell anyone, but she told him she was not going to lie anymore, to which he responded, “Okay,” according to the complaint said.

Detectives interviewed Douma on Friday at the Pleasant Prairie Police Department, and he confessed, on video, that everything the girl had claimed about sexual assault was true, the complaint said.

Douma said the assaults occurred on and off over the years, and he did not know how many times in total,l but that it happened most frequently over the past two years, the complaint said. He added that it “happened an awful lot over the years.”

Douma was an elder at The Point in Winthrop Harbor where he served with the church’s AIM children’s ministry doing security. The church has since removed Douma from its website and YouTube channel.

Court records show Douma appeared in Kenosha County Court on Monday and was ordered held in the Kenosha County Jail on a $50,000 cash bond.

Douma posted the bond and was released from jail with pre-trial conditions. He is scheduled to appear in court again on December 16 for a preliminary hearing.

Douma faces a potential combined prison sentence of 280 years if he is convicted of all charges, sentenced to the maximum for each, and each sentence runs consecutively.