A United Methodist pastor from Crawford County is in jail, charged with sending sexually explicit Web videos of himself to someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl.

Instead, the Rev. Steven Richard McGuigan was in a Yahoo! Messenger chat room with special agent David Frattare of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Child Predator Unit.

The Rev. McGuigan, 39, was arrested Wednesday at Valley United Methodist Church in Conneautville, which he served along with nearby Hickernell United Methodist Church.

Yesterday he was still jailed on charges of unlawful contact with minors and criminal use of a communication facility, in lieu of $35,000 bail. He faces up to 28 years in prison and $60,000 in fines.

He was immediately removed from all pastoral duties pending outcome of the criminal case and a church investigation, United Methodist Bishop Thomas Bickerton said.

The Rev. McGuigan was appointed to the Conneautville churches in 2004, but was not fully ordained until 2006, according to the Western Pennsylvania Conference Journal. He is married but has no children.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, on Dec. 10, the Rev. McGuigan entered a Yahoo! Messenger's Romance site and began chatting with a purported 13-year-old named "Brianna," the first of seven increasingly explicit chats over about six weeks.

Using a court order, Agent Frattare tracked him down via Yahoo! and his Internet provider.