Pastor caught by police in car with bound naked man says he was 'counselling' him

'I will deny, on a stack of Bibles with God as my witness, that I did nothing'

A pastor who was caught with by police with a bound naked man in a car, has insisted he was "counselling" his companion.

George Nelson Gregory has been charged with open lewdness and indecent exposure because the car was parked in a public street.

But the 61-year-old told news channel CBS Pittsburgh he was simply “counselling a young man with a drug problem”.

Police were initially alerted to the scene in Homestead, western Pennsylvania, by a father who told them he had seen a naked man get out of a car, which was parked outside his daughter’s window.

A criminal complaint filed against Mr Gregory states officers found the pastor in the back seat, and another man bound with nylon rope and completely naked in a front seat.

When Mr Gregory was asked what was happening, he allegedly told them they “were just playing” and that the pair “met up from time to time to play with each other”.

The other man confirmed the scene was consensual, the complaint said.

Mr Gregory insists the police’s account of the conversation “never happened” and that he had “nothing to hide”.

"It did turn strange, but it wasn't my doing, OK?” he told CBS Pittsburgh. “And I was adamant that I'm not participating in that way. And so that's when the police pulled up, and they assume things, but I'm standing by my story. It's not true."

Mr Gregory said he and his wife had repeatedly tried to get the other man help and had been working with him for years.

“I won’t deny that he began to take his clothes off and propositioned me, but I will deny, on a stack of Bibles with God as my witness, that I did nothing,” Mr Gregory said.

The pastor insists he was fully clothed and should therefore not be charged with open lewdness.