‘There Is No Excuse.’ Methodist Pastor, Accused of Sexual Harassment, Steps Down.

But she said as they walked through downtown Salt Lake City to visit Temple Square, Mr. Heckman embraced her from behind, freezing her with fear, and invited her to his hotel room. There, she said, he tried to put his hands down her pants and she left. Afterward, Ms. Anderson said, he sent her text messages with sexual fantasies and aspirations to marry her.

“The behavior was insistent,” Ms. Anderson said.

In an email, Mr. Heckman disputed the accusations from Ms. Anderson and the three other women, saying that he had not harmed or harassed anyone.

“Rev. Heckman never touched Megan, nor shared sexual thoughts with her, and she did not flee his hotel room,” he said, writing about himself in the third person. “Rev. Heckman wishes for the well-being and peace of all the parties involved.”

Ms. Anderson said her path continued to cross with Mr. Heckman. In March 2018, he became the executive director of the Tri-Faith Initiative, a group in Omaha that houses Christian, Muslim and Jewish congregations on the same campus. The group acquired The Interfaith Observer news site, and Ms. Anderson said she had an uncomfortable visit to their offices in Nebraska during which Mr. Heckman told her, “Daddy will buy you lunch.”

Wendy Goldberg, the interim director of Tri-Faith, said on Friday that Mr. Heckman had left his position as executive director last February “in light of allegations of harassment.”

The four complaints against Mr. Heckman were filed together in November 2018 after Cassandra Lawrence, a Methodist seminarian in Washington, D.C., said she began chasing a “daisy chain of rumors” she had heard about Mr. Heckman. She said her investigation connected her with Mr. Heckman’s ex-wife, an ex-girlfriend, Ms. Anderson and another woman who reported being harassed at an interfaith conference.

“When you start to dig beneath the surface, you find this pattern of harassment, intimidation and worse,” Ms. Lawrence said.