UPDATED::Wilson pastor arrested on child porn charge | The Wilson Times

UPDATE::  Former minister at CBF church confesses to sexting with teen

A former minister at a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-affiliated church in North Carolina has pleaded guilty to enticing and coercing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity.

Daniel Franklin Heath, who stepped down in May after 10 years on staff at First Baptist Church in Wilson, North Carolina, admitted to a federal court in Texas that he knew the unnamed minor was under 18 and living with her parents in Texas when he asked her to take photos and videos of herself engaging in sexually explicit conduct on her cellular phone and send the images to him.

Heath, 33, admitted his communications with the victim were romantic in nature, with both parties declaring themselves to be “in love.” Prosecutors said Heath required the girl to “submit” to him in matters including what to wear and to obtain his consent before touching her own body, but he did not agree with that part of a statement of stipulated facts.

Authorities allege a Wilson pastor enticed a 16-year-old girl to create child pornography for more than a year.

Wilson police charged 33-year-old Daniel Franklin Heath, an associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Wilson with first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.

Heath, who has been the church’s associate pastor for three years, was the youth pastor there for seven years prior to his current role.

The FBI contacted the Wilson Police Department in April regarding Heath, who was the subject of an ongoing investigation, according to Sgt. Steve Stroud.

Wilson pastor arrested on child porn charge | The Wilson Times

UPDATED::Former Houston's First Baptist Church minister accused of embezzling $800k from church | khou.com

UPDATE::  Texas pastor who stole over $800,000 from his church will go to prison for a decade

Over a period of more than six years as the head of Houston First Baptist Church, former minister Jerrell G. Altic, 40, stole more than $800,000 in funds from the people he was meant to serve.

This past week, Altic was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his misdeeds.

The church did not discover the discrepancy in funds from its coffers until late in 2017, when it saw a series of transactions that were connected to Altic. When they confronted the minister about the money transfers, he immediately resigned from his position, and the church passed on the information to the local authorities.

A Harris County grand jury indicted a former Houston's First Baptist Church minister Monday for allegedly stealing more than $800,000 from the church.


Jerrell G. Altic, 40, allegedly embezzled the money during a six-year period that ended in November 2017, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors say Altic allegedly spent the stolen funds on overseas trips with his family, groceries and to pay for his doctorate in divinity from Lancaster Bible College.

They added that he stole the money in a number of ways, including forged payments authorizations.

Altic surrendered to authorities around 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Former Houston's First Baptist Church minister accused of embezzling $800k from church | khou.com

UPDATED::Retired teacher, pastor, charged with sexual abuse of a minor - KRBD

UPDATE::  Ketchikan pastor, teacher sentenced for sexually abusing minor

Former Ketchikan High School teacher and local pastor Doug Edwards was sentenced Thursday to serve six years in jail for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl who was a student and member of his congregation.

Edwards was charged last spring with sexual abuse of a minor for abusing a 14-year-old girl at Ketchikan High School, at his home and at the church where he was a pastor. He pleaded guilty in early February to one consolidated charge of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor through a plea agreement.

UPDATE:: Doug Edwards plea deal: 18 years, 12 suspended

A former Ketchikan High School teacher pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexual abuse of a minor through a plea agreement that calls for him to serve six years in jail.

Doug Edwards was charged last spring with six counts of sexual abuse of a minor for groping a then-14-year-old girl’s chest at the school, at his home and at the church where he was a pastor. The plea agreement consolidates those six charges into one Class B felony.
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After he’s served his time in prison, Edwards will be required to register as a sex offender, and update that registration every three months for the rest of his life.

The plea agreement called for a sentence of 18 years with 12 suspended. That leaves six to serve, but with “good time,” Edwards could be released after four years.

Recently retired Ketchikan High School teacher and local pastor Doug Edwards has been arrested and charged with three counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

According to the complaint filed in court by police Detective Devin Miller, the charges stem from incidents last fall with a 14-year-old girl. She knew Edwards through his roles as a pastor with First Baptist Church and as a culinary arts teacher at Ketchikan High School.

Police say Edwards has admitted to the crimes.

Retired teacher, pastor, charged with sexual abuse of a minor - KRBD

Woman: I was abused as teen by pastor at Modesto's First Baptist | The Modesto Bee

While the SOL has passed for Graves' case, it’s important to share her story and learn from it. It’s all too common for churches to conceal abuse like this in order to preserve their reputation, and it’s unacceptable.

The 27-year-old married youth pastor in Modesto consoled the troubled girl, whose father had just died. Eventually, he kissed her. Then he fondled her.

She was 14.

Over the next 2 1/2 years, Brad Tebbutt sexually abused Jennifer Graves in his office at First Baptist Church, a prominent Modesto congregation, and in his car. After school, before his wife returned from work, he would have sex with her in his home, she said.

At the end of her junior year at Beyer High School, in 1988, Tebbutt and his wife moved away. A recent publication boasts of his 30-year career as a youth pastor, and he now works in a seniors ministry for the International House of Prayer of Kansas City.
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Church leaders never informed her mother. They never went to police. They termed it an affair, she said.
 
“They gave me specific directions to never speak of the events to anyone, because it would damage the reputation of the church, and of Jesus himself,” she said. “The abuse was swept under the rug.”
 
Two friends from those days who also attended First Baptist, Deborah Jules Vilmur and Jennifer Vanderpol Tracz, recently confirmed that she had confided in them about the abuse not long after it happened.

Woman: I was abused as teen by pastor at Modesto's First Baptist | The Modesto Bee

Youth pastor charged with statutory rape in St. Francois County, Mo. | Law and order | stltoday.com

A youth pastor at the First Baptist Church in East Bonne Terre is being charged after police say he sexually assaulted a girl at the church.

Brian Cassidy, 33, of Park Hills, was charged with a class A felony of statutory rape in the first degree and a class B felony of child molestation in the first degree, the Daily Journal of Park Hills reported Saturday.

According to a probable cause statement, on Dec. 15 an Children's Advocacy Center interview was conducted with a girl less than 17 years old. During the interview she said she was having a relationship with Cassidy.

Youth pastor charged with statutory rape in St. Francois County, Mo. | Law and order | stltoday.com

John Ware: First Baptist Church sexual battery | WFTV | WFTV

An Orange County Sunday school teacher faces charges of sexual battery on a child under 12 years old, deputies said.

John Maxwell Ware, 53, who works at First Baptist Church of Pine Castle, was arrested Tuesday, deputies said.
  
Investigators were notified Monday that Ware abused the child Saturday at a fall festival at the church at 1001 Hoffner Ave. in Orlando.

John Ware: First Baptist Church sexual battery | WFTV | WFTV

Ex-Charlottesville youth pastor to serve 30 days for sexual abuse - The Daily Progress: Local

 

  

A former youth pastor at a Charlottesville church has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a teenager in his care and will spend 30 days behind bars.

Jacob Daniel Kepple was arrested in December 2014 on two charges of taking indecent liberties with a child. The 36-year-old appeared in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Thursday to plead guilty to one of those charges as part of a plea agreement with the prosecution, which dropped his second charge.

The prosecution said in court that between 2009 and 2011, while Kepple was a youth minister at First Baptist Church on Park Street, he spent increasing amounts of one-on-one time with a high school sophomore who attended First Baptist that grew increasingly inappropriate, though the two never engaged in sexual activity.
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Judge Richard Moore said that while the case was a difficult one, he agreed that there was “substantial and sufficient” evidence on which to base the plea agreement. Moore said Kepple’s offenses came down to three components: having taken advantage of a child in his supervision, having inappropriate sexual contact with a child, and violating the trust of the victim, the church and so many others.

Ex-Charlottesville youth pastor to serve 30 days for sexual abuse - The Daily Progress: Local

Child sex charges concern church members - Story | KDFW

People in North Texas are wondering how an accused child sex offender moved from a different state and got a job at a local church.

Former Alabama youth minister Kyle Adcock now works at First Baptist Church of Bedford.

Alabama court documents show has been charged with 29 counts of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl between 2010 and 2012, when he was her youth minister.

He was working at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals at the time; a city about two hours northwest of Birmingham.

Adcock was living in Frisco at the time of his arrest last year.
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Steve Knott, pastor of First Baptist Bedford, told FOX 4 on the phone that Adcock is a temporary employee in the music ministry, and that generally, the church does do background checks.

But a simple Google search would've turned up several articles, mug shots and pictures of his arrests, dating back to last summer.

Knox pointed out twice that Adcock has not been convicted of any crime.

Brooks and Fawks agree that suspects are innocent until proven guilty, but they find it troublesome that a former youth minister sought employment in the same kind of environment, a church ministry, where he has been accused of 29 counts of underage sexual abuse.

“Until that has been proven one way or the other, you are not put back in a situation where this problem started from,” said Brooks.

Child sex charges concern church members - Story | KDFW

See also::

Church questioned after hiring accused predator

Bond revoked for former Muscle Shoals youth minister

Youth pastor sentenced to 20 years - Herald Bulletin: Local News

A former Vincennes youth pastor was sentenced Monday to the maximum 20 years in prison after pleading guilty last month to sexual misconduct with a minor.

Derrick “Duke” Hampsch, 34, was arrested in Madison County last September. At the same time, a charge of sexual misconduct with a minor, a Class B felony, was filed in Knox County after a relative of the teenage girl reported the alleged incidents to Vincennes police.

Hampsch admitted to having sexual contact with a minor in an Anderson church five years ago while working as the youth pastor for First Baptist Church in Vincennes.
On Monday, Madison Circuit Court Division 3 Judge Thomas Newman Jr. sentenced Hampsch to serve the entire 20-year sentence following a hearing that lasted several hours.
A September trial date has been set for the sexual misconduct charge in Knox County.
Youth pastor sentenced to 20 years - Herald Bulletin: Local News