By Paul Waldmiller
Did you know that a pastor and former Pasco County deputy, had molestation charges recently dropped?
In a recent move by the State Attorney’s Office a week ago, all four charges of molesting children against Pastor Angelo Musicaro were dropped. He was arrested in April 2026 and held on a $605,000 bond after being accused of inappropriate conduct and molestation involving four juvenile victims between 2021 and 2026.
State Attorney Bruce Bartlett concluded that the investigation did not reveal facts warranting prosecution, leading to the dismissal of charges including lewd and lascivious behavior.
Pastor Musicaro, who served as a former Marine, school resource officer, and deputy, stated he forgave his accusers and planned to return to his church, Worship-Life Church, in New Port Richey. Commenting on his arrest, Musicaro stated, “It was brutal, what happened to me. I would never have guessed in a million years that false allegations could lead to me losing my freedom.”
A 2020 report from the Ethics & Public Policy Center cited a 2004 finding that of “5,681 allegations resulting in investigations that produced ‘definitive results,’ the definitive result in 1,028 of those cases was the allegation could not be substantiated. That is one-fifth (19.6 percent) of the investigated cases, allegations were either disproven conclusively (1.5%), or could not be substantiated (18.1 percent).”