Police Break Into Church, Seize Brother of David Soul for Refusing to Vacate It

Police officers broke into the suburban Nativity Lutheran Church on Wednesday and arrested the Rev. Daniel Solberg.

Solberg, 34, brother of actor David Soul, had refused to leave after being fired as pastor because of his ties to a militant clergy-labor group protesting unemployment in the area.

Solberg is the second pastor to be dismissed by the Western Pennsylvania-West Virginia Synod of the Lutheran Church in America because of membership in the Denominational Ministry Strategy, a group that has used confrontational tactics to draw attention to the plight of unemployed steel workers.

District Justice Regis C. Welsh Jr. arraigned Solberg on charges of criminal trespass and defiant trespass. The criminal complaint was signed by Raymond Smith, president of the Nativity Lutheran Church Council, Welsh’s secretary said.

The felony charge of criminal trespass could bring a maximum of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine on conviction, and the defiant trespass charge, a misdemeanor, could result in a prison term of up to one year and a $2,500 fine.

Solberg was being held at the county jail in Pittsburgh, with bond set at $5,000. He faces a hearing before Welsh on May 30.

Solberg rejected Welsh’s offer to release him on his own recognizance if he would promise not to return to the church.

Another Lutheran minister, the Rev. D. Douglas Roth, served a 112-day jail sentence for civil contempt of court after he, too, disobeyed church orders to vacate his pulpit.