Former United Pentecostal Church Pastor, Wife Arrested for Being Drunk at Bar With Baby
Three years after parting ways with the United Pentecostal Church International, Michael Trosclair, a former senior pastor at Turning Point Church in Theodore, Alabama, was arrested at a bar along with his wife and their infant daughter in tow.
According to AL.com, Trosclair, 45, and Shari Tremba, 42, who told police that the former pastor is her husband, were arrested by local police at the Wild Beaver Saloon in Indianapolis, Indiana. They are both from Mobile, Alabama, but were reportedly on a work trip for Primerica. At the time of his arrest on June 16, Trosclair was a regional vice president for the company and Tremba reportedly worked in financial services for the company at some point as well.
They were both charged with neglect of a dependent in a situation that endangers the dependent, and public intoxication. A three-page probable cause affidavit, obtained by AL.com, chronicles the events that led to their arrests.
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Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to the bar at about 12:38 a.m. last Friday about a woman who was soliciting customers for beer while drinking and breast feeding an infant.
Sgt. Ty Van Wagner said Tremba told him the baby was hers after he began asking questions. He was later told by a witness that she was offering sex to different individuals in exchange for beer. The witness said Tremba breast fed the baby as she drank and she had been at the bar since approximately 10:30 p.m.
Tremba later told authorities that she was at the bar with her husband. She was then informed by the officers that they would be calling in medics as well as Child Protective Services.
While questioning Tremba, however, a drunken Trosclair intervened.
"His gait was what I would consider an intoxicated walk that I have seen many times during my 25 years as a police officer,'' Van Wagner wrote, according to AL.com.
When police told Trosclair that they were going to have the baby examined, "Mr. Trosclair became belligerent and started demanding to talk to a lawyer and telling us we weren't going to do anything,'' Det. Nicolle Flynn wrote. "It was at this time, due to Mr. Trosclair's behavior, I put him in cuffs for fear he may fight us with the baby right there."
Even after he was placed in handcuffs, police say Trosclair still didn't understand why there was a problem.
"This goes to show Mr. Trosclair was too intoxicated to understand the situation his own child was in when the mother, Ms. Tremba, starts to breastfeed the child,'' Flynn wrote. "It also shows a lack of care for the child and its welfare while in his and Ms. Tremba's care. Partying was more important than their child."
An official with the UPCI headquarters in Weldon Spring, Missouri, confirmed with The Christian Post Thursday that Trosclair was once a licensed minister with the organization but has not been affiliated with them for about three years.
She declined say for how long he was an active minister.
The couple's daughter is in the care of the state.
