Tara Glan raped children at a church in Taylor, Pennsylvania for five years. He also raped a woman with a documented intellectual disability — roughly 18 times, eight of them inside the church itself, 10 more in the church van after he dropped off the other passengers and she was alone with him.

He pleaded guilty on February 2 before Judge Michael J. Barrasse. Five first-degree felonies. Five victims. Five separate cases. More than 50 additional charges were dropped to make it happen.

The Lackawanna County District Attorney’s office, run by Brian Gallagher, did not issue a press release. Did not send a statement to media. Did not post a word about it on the office website. The only outlet that touched the story was WOLF-TV Fox56, and they reported that Glan was “found guilty” — as if a jury heard evidence and delivered a verdict. No jury heard anything. This was a negotiated plea deal, and nobody told the public what it cost.

NCMEC Cyber Tip Led to Tara Glan’s Arrest in Lackawanna County

Nobody walked into a police station and reported Tara Glan. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sent a cyber tip to Lackawanna County detectives in April 2025. That tip led to Glan’s residence, and on April 17, detectives arrested him.

But not for the rapes. For child pornography.

Investigators say Glan filmed a separate person — Amir Bomjan, then 16 — raping an 8-year-old child at Ray of Hope Church and at Glan’s home (CR-1179). That footage is what NCMEC flagged. The rapes of five other victims came out only because detectives kept pulling the thread after the arrest.

Think about that for a second. If Glan hadn’t filmed Bomjan, if that footage hadn’t hit a platform that reported it, there’s no cyber tip. No arrest. No investigation. The abuse at Ray of Hope Church could still be happening.

And here’s something else. On February 2 — the same day Glan stood in court and admitted to five felonies — prosecutors moved to nolle pros CR-1179. The Bomjan filming case. The one that started everything. As of publication, the formal dismissal hasn’t been processed and the case sits open in the court management system. Bomjan’s own case, charged separately, hasn’t been publicly resolved either.

Ray of Hope Church in Taylor, 2020–2025

Glan was 22 when he pleaded guilty. He was 17 when it started.

The earliest offense in the docket is August 1, 2020 (CR-1193). The charges describe rape of a child and nine counts of filming sex acts — Glan allegedly abused a child victim and recorded it. He was charged as an adult when the case was filed in 2025. No juvenile transfer hearing appears in the public docket.

By July 2021, he’d moved on to a new victim. CR-1194 describes Glan sexually assaulting a woman whose intellectual disability was documented in an Individualized Education Program — which under Pennsylvania law establishes legal incapacity to consent. The complaint lays out approximately 18 assaults. Eight inside the church. Ten in the van. She was alone with him every time because he’d already dropped off the other passengers.

When detectives sat Glan down at Lackawanna County Prison in May 2025, he didn’t deny it. He told investigators she was the only girl he’d ever met who would have sex with him.

He pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person with a mental disability. Prosecutors dropped two counts of rape of a mentally disabled person and both aggravated indecent assault charges.

Three more child victims surface in the docket between 2022 and early 2025. CR-1192 carries an offense date of January 2022. CR-1195, July 2023. And CR-1187 — the most recent — lists the offense date as February 22, 2025. Seven weeks before Glan’s first arrest. He was still doing this seven weeks before anyone stopped him.

Lackawanna County Prosecutors Dropped 50+ Charges in Glan Plea Deal

The plea deal gave Glan one conviction per case. Everything else was dropped.

CR-1187 alone had 20 charges filed. Resolved on one. Across all five cases, more than 50 counts came off — rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, child sexual abuse material offenses. Gone.

Each surviving first-degree felony carries up to 20 years. Mandatory minimums kick in for sexual offenses involving children. On February 4, Judge Barrasse ordered a Sexual Offenders Assessment Board evaluation to determine whether Glan qualifies as a Sexually Violent Predator under SORNA — lifetime quarterly registration, no exceptions.

There are real reasons prosecutors make deals like this, and they’re worth stating plainly. Forcing a child to take a witness stand and describe being raped is something the system avoids when it can. ADA Tara Foley, who handled the prosecution throughout, had strong cards — filmed abuse, a defendant who admitted what he did on record — and she got convictions on all five cases. No acquittals. No mistrials. That counts for something.

But what Gallagher’s office did afterward doesn’t count for anything, because they did nothing.

DA Brian Gallagher Issued No Press Release After Glan Guilty Plea

Go to lackawannada.com. The Lackawanna County DA’s office posts press releases there. A drug trafficking ring in September 2025. A murder conviction that same month. Five thousand counts of child pornography against a Scranton man in July. A reminder not to drink and drive over the holidays in November.

A man pleading guilty to raping an intellectually disabled woman and multiple children over half a decade at a church in Taylor? February 2, 2026.

Nothing.

Gallagher didn’t forget. He personally filed the charging information in multiple Glan cases — a step normally handled by line prosecutors. He knew exactly what these cases were. His office crafted the plea offer. His ADA stood in front of Judge Barrasse and presented it. And afterward, his office made a choice: the public doesn’t need to know.

So what the public got instead was a WOLF-TV Fox56 report calling the outcome a guilty finding. No mention of the plea structure. No mention of the 50-plus dropped charges. No mention of the SOAB assessment, the pending sentencing, the nolle prossed filming case, or the fact that one man spent five years assaulting people at one church while he drove its van and ran its youth group.

Sentencing Pending in Lackawanna County, SOAB Assessment Overdue

Glan has been locked up at Lackawanna County Prison since April 17, 2025. No sentencing date has been set.

The SOAB evaluation ordered in February typically takes 90 days. That window closed. Nothing has appeared in the public docket.

When sentencing does come, Judge Barrasse will decide how long Glan serves and whether to designate him a Sexually Violent Predator — a classification that follows him for life no matter what the sentence is.

Ray of Hope Church sits at 258 N. Main St. in Taylor. Glan ran the youth group there. He drove the van. Investigators say he committed eight of the documented assaults inside the building. Nobody has publicly asked the church how a man did this under its roof, using its vehicle, to its congregants, for five years.

Pocono Review is an investigative news outlet covering Wayne, Monroe, Pike, Carbon, Lackawanna, and Luzerne counties. Tips: poconoreview.com.