FRANKLIN, Ind. — A youth pastor will be formally charged today in a sex scandal involving three 15-year-old girls at a Greenwood worship center.

Jonathan James Hartman, 29, Indianapolis, had sex on multiple occasions with the three girls and tried to push one of them, whom he had impregnated, to get an abortion about a month ago, Franklin police said.

Hartman has been dismissed as a volunteer youth pastor at the Salvation Army-Johnson County Corps Center of Hope, 325 Market Plaza. Police said Hartman had sex with the girls over a period of three years, sometimes at his Far-Southside home, but usually at the nondenominational Christian worship center.

He had passed a criminal background check and attended mandated training for adults supervising children at the center, said Jeff Stanger, development director for the Salvation Army Indiana Division.

“A bad one got through,” Stanger said Wednesday.

Hartman should not have been individually supervising the girls, all friends in a church band, Stanger said.

“I cannot say how that happened until we can do more of an internal investigation,” he said.

Hartman often would drive the girls to and from their homes for band practice on Thursdays, police said.

Hartman, 8700 block of Winding Ridge Road, will be charged with two counts of child molestation and four counts of sexual misconduct with a minor, according to Johnson County Prosecutor Brad Cooper.

All three girls are 15, the prosecutor said. Police are not publicly identifying them.

A criminal investigation began last week when the pregnant girl, who attends Franklin High School, told police she was sexually involved with Hartman. Police later learned Hartman also had sex with another Franklin High School pupil and a Perry Meridian High School student, according to authorities.

Hartman told police he knew the girl was pregnant after she took a home test and a later test at a local Planned Parenthood office.

“His reaction was that he wanted her to get an abortion, and he was pushing her for it,” Franklin Police Detective Kevin Scheuermann said. “She even came up with some ideas on how to (end) the pregnancy, to cause a miscarriage.”

The detective said Hartman on Friday consented to a DNA test that confirmed he fathered the girl’s unborn baby.

Scheuermann said the sex was consensual, and the three girls knew each was having sex with Hartman.

“Outside of the parents having occasional suspicions, I don’t think there’s been any knowledge within the church, other than that small group of people,” the detective said. The parents “trusted him until they found out what was going on with their children.”

Hartman was arrested Tuesday at his job at a credit counseling business on the Far Southside. He and his father, Salvation Army Maj. Richard Hartman, the worship center’s pastor, declined to comment Wednesday.

Jonathan Hartman was being held Wednesday in the Johnson County Jail on $150,000 bond. No court hearing had been set.