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Phillip Fisher Jr., who works with the Philadelphia chapter, once pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual abuse of a minor boy, but he still claims he's innocent.
Moms for Liberty claims to be “protecting” children from content the group deems inappropriate, such as anything involving LGBTQ+ people. But it turns out that the faith outreach coordinator for Moms for Liberty’s Philadelphia chapter is a registered sex offender.
Phillip Fisher Jr., who’s also a minister and Republican ward leader in Philadelphia, was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy in 2012 in Chicago, The Philadelphia Inquirerreports.
Fisher has maintained he’s innocent, even though he pleaded guilty to the charge, one of 12 counts filed against him. He said he was set up by associates in a political action committee for the late conspiracy theorist and presidential aspirant Lyndon LaRouche. He was trying to escape the group, which he came to consider a cult, he told the Inquirer.
“It was a political situation that happened between me and Lyndon LaRouche,” Fisher said. “It was a member of his camp, his party, that made the accusation. They pushed it through. It was really a railroad job.” The boy’s parents were involved with the group, he said.
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Charging documents viewed by the Inquirer accuse Fisher of having oral and anal sex with the boy in 2011. Fisher was in his mid-20s at the time. He said he pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement so he could get out of the Cook County jail, where he suffered abuse from other inmates.
“I said I’ll do whatever I have to do to get out of there,” he told the Inquirer. He received a three-year prison sentence but was credited for 20 months of time served in the county jail while awaiting trial. He was subject to two years of supervised release and had to register as a sex offender.
A Philadelphia native, he said he went to Chicago to work for the LaRouche organization. The Inquirer found photos of him at a protest in Chicago in 2009. “In the photos, Fisher held a large poster with a picture of then-President Barack Obama defaced to add a mustache like the one made infamous by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany,” the paper reports.
Fisher is pastor of the Center of Universal Divinity, a church in Philadelphia, and helps connect the local Moms for Liberty chapter with other religious leaders. He volunteered at a summit that Moms for Liberty held in Philadelphia this summer, which featured speeches by Donald Trump and two other Republican presidential hopefuls, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
He supported Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and has volunteered for other Republican candidates, including Mehmet Oz, who ran for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania in 2022, and David Oh, who ran for mayor of Philadelphia this year. Both were defeated.
He has been the Republican Party’s leader for Philadelphia’s 42nd Ward. Vince Fenerty, chair of Philadelphia’s Republican City Committee, told the Inquirer he was surprised to learn of Fisher’s criminal record, and upon learning about it, he insisted that Fisher resign — and he did.
Sheila Armstrong, chair of Philly’s Moms for Liberty chapter, also said she was surprised to learn Fisher had a criminal history, but she did not say whether he would continue working with the group.
Fisher said he never went out of his way to hide his record, which is in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and national sex offender databases. “It’s an easy search,” he told the Inquirer.
