Ohio pastor, Tom Randall, jailed in Philippines, supporters rally on Facebook
Nearly 18,000 supporters of a Hudson-based pastor working overseas at an orphanage have rallied to his defense on Facebook as he faces serious charges of human trafficking.
Tom Randall, who works part-time at a Hudson church, has been detained by authorities in the Philippines and charged with human trafficking, according to the Nordonia Hills News Leader.
Randall and his wife Karen are missionaries who run this orphanage in Lucena. During a visit he and the orphanage were investigated by the Philippine version of Child Services and the FBI.
“After 2 weeks of exhausting interviews Tom and the staff of the orphanage were completely exonerated. Tom called me to rejoice and then left on the basketball trip,” Joe Coffey writes on his blog before detailing how the situation has worsened.
“The accusor was not pleased. He refused to meet with Tom to discuss the Child Services and the FBI report. He went quiet. We hoped he would realize the damage false accusations can do. Instead he went to the U.S. Embassy and Homeland Security. The original charge was that a worker at the orphanage had kissed one of the girls. That ended up to be untrue. The girl recanted the story and said she made it up because she was angry that privileges had been taken away as discipline. By the time the accusation was presented to the U.S.Embassy the charge was that the World Harvest orphanage was actually a front for sex trafficking.”
“He is being held right now in Manila in a prison at NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] headquarters,” according to Coffey.
Jim Woodward, who met Randall in Oklahoma, in an interview with KFOR-TV, said, “He once told me there was people that didn’t like him there, that wanted him dead. I always said, ‘Why do you go back?’ That’s how strongly he felt about those children.”
Several folks have reached out to the Dispatch to review the details of Randall’s case, so we are sending out requests for interviews to gather even more facts.
Check out the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FreeTomRandall