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[jjf1990]

Don't know if the following information is correct or not.
Neither is it my personal view,
just thought it either needs to be debunked with facts
or be proven to be true with facts.
Don't kill the messenger, kill the message lol
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First Baptist is a congregation that reveres its pastor. And so a dozen church elders decided unanimously that pastor Rev. Lawrence French, who says he is innocent, should remain as pastor. Convinced that the 72-year-old pastor could not have committed the alleged offenses, they also concluded that it would be unfair to French to notify other members of the church about the allegations. (The Boston Globe, November 1, 2002)

Paster Convicted by Synod, but Congregation doesn't believe Pastor is guilty

Congration wants Paster to Remain

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OLNEY, Ill. If things had gone as planned, 35-year-old Leslie Mason would have preached the keynote sermon at this year's annual meeting of the Illinois Baptist State Association Nov. 7. Instead the former pastor of Olney Southern Baptist Church faces 10 counts of criminal sexual assault involving two teenage girls who attended his southeastern Illinois congregation. (October 24, 2002, ABP)

Baptist Pastor charged with criminal sexual assault of two teenagers

http://www.baptiststoday.org/btns11_8b.html
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Austin, TX. A former youth minister faces up to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of nine counts of child sexual abuse. Charles Richard Willits, Jr., 44, a former youth minister at Great Hills Baptist Church, was convicted Saturday. Sentencing was scheduled for Monday. (October 18, 2002; Abilene Reporter-News)

Youth Paster Convicted in Criminal Court

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Fresno, CA. A southwest Fresno pastor has been arrested on suspicion he had a four-year sexual relationship with a teenage boy nearly 20 years ago, Fresno police confirmed Monday. Calvin Eugene Moore, 45, a pastor at King Solomon Baptist Church, was arrested for an alleged sexual relationship he had with the boy, police said. Moore remains in the Fresno County Jail in lieu of $550,000 bail. (The Fresno Bee; October 16, 2002)

Paster Arrested

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RALEIGH, N.C. A Southern Baptist missionary who was fired for abusing children in Indonesia is working at a Raleigh church where the minister knew of his past. (June 28, 2002; AP)

Molester Paster Knowingly Hired by another Church

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Gastonia, SC. GASTONIA - A local youth minister has been charged with three counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor, police said Thursday. Marty Eugene Meadows, 34, worked as a minister at the Sunset Lane Baptist Church in Bessemer City, police said. Meadows appeared before a magistrate and a judge Wednesday, and was released after posting a $3,000 bond. "There are multiple victims," said Capt. Tony Robinson, a spokesman with the Gaston County Police. "He was touching them in an inappropriate manner." (June, 14, 2002, The Charlotte Observer)

Youth minister faces sex charges

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/states/north_carolina/counties/gaston/3466742.htm

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Gastonia, SC. On Wednesday, Lincoln County pastor Dewey "Eddie" White was found guilty in district court of propositioning a 15-year-old girl, prosecutors said. The charge was soliciting to commit a crime against nature, said Kay Killian, a Lincoln County prosecutor.(June, 14, 2002, The Charlotte Observer)

Pastor of Heavenly View Full Gospel Baptist Church

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/states/north_carolina/counties/gaston/3466742.htm

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Syracuse, NY. David Gardiner, the Pastor of Liverpool Baptist Church, was arraigned on sexual abuse charges on Wednesday. Gardiner, 43, eluded a police swat team and dozens of sheriff’s deputies for more than eight hours from around 5:00 pm Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Sheriff Kevin Walsh says Gardiner is accused of having sexual contact with a girl who is under age 11. Court documents show the allegations do not involve anyone outside the Gardiner home. According to Sheriff Walsh, the investigation began when Gardiner’s wife Deborah contacted his department. Gardiner also taught Bible study and economics classes at the Baldwinsville Christian Academy; he has been fired from the job in the wake of the sex abuse allegations. (March 8, 2002, WTVH news)

Minister flees law after sex abuse charges

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/news/0501story115953_news.shtml
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A survey of SBC pastors published in the Winter, 1993 edition of The Journal of Pastoral Care, done by Jeff Seats, an SBC pastoral counselor, revealed that 14.1% of ministers surveyed admitted to "engagement in sexual behavior which was judged by the individual pastors to be inappropriate for a minister."

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Oakland, CA. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Reverend Charles Thomas of the Foothill Missionary Baptist Church. Thomas is accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl from his congregation during a month-long period in the fall. Thomas reportedly called a special meeting with church members last week and admitted that the charges were true. If convicted, he could face up to eight years in prison. (12-11-2001; KPIX TV)

Reverend sought in crime

KPIX report

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Beginning at age 11, Esther Combs was regularly sexually abused by her father. She said he told her that King David had concubines, so this behavior was condoned by the Bible. Esther, her three brothers and two sisters were home-schooled. No visitors were allowed into the home — not even parishioners. A later search of the property found it was filthy, garbage and rat-infested and inhabited by caged cats and dogs. The pungent odor was still faintly there last fall when the detective took me and our cameras on a tour of the place. Richmond pointed out the basketball floor where, she says Esther Combs "was beaten with ropes, chains, whips, umbrellas, bats." (ABC News, Oct. 18. 2001)

In November 1998, Joe and Evangeline Combs were indicted on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse, assault and kidnapping; Joe was further charged with rape. Last spring, both were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms that will likely keep them behind bars for the rest of their lives.


How Esther Combs Finally Escaped a Lifetime of Abuse

http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/2020/primetime_esthercombs_feature.html

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ABC released excerpts, including Heche's revelation that she spent the first 31 years of her life suffering from mental illness triggered by sexual abuse by her father. Heche says she was sexually abused by her father from the time she was a toddler until she was 12. Donald Heche, a choir director in a Baptist church who frequented gay bars, died of AIDS in 1983. (USA Today; Sept. 4, 2001)
Anne Heche sexually abused by father, a Baptist choir Director

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2001-09-04-heche.htm

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TAMPA - A one-time Baptist church deacon was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for what the FBI called "cyberterrorism"that targeted young women on the Internet.

Robert Harvey Alexander, 52, had assembled a list of 100 e-mail addresses of high school and college students and demanded they have sexually explicit conversations with him or he would ruin their reputations, court records said.

Alexander, who was a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tampa at the time of his arrest, also taunted his victims by telling them that police couldn't find him. FBI agents arrested him last Nov. at a computer terminal at a Tampa public library.

Alexanderuilty to 6 counts of extortion. His attorney argued that Alexander suffers from bipolar disorder and didn't fully understand what he'd done. AP 10/7/2000.


Cyber-Extortion Results in Prison Sentence

(http://net4tv.com/voice/story.cfm?storyid=2931)

CHURCH DEACON FACES MULTIPLE CHARGES
(http://faculty.csumb.edu/mountfordcarolin/world/cst371/history.html)

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A former Burlington pastor charged with sex crimes has left his Danville, Va., church after reportedly admitting to deacons there that he acted inappropriately with a child. Many members of the Danville church pastored by the Rev. James Preston Tyndall were shocked Sunday to learn that he had been charged with six felony sex crimes Thursday and had resigned Friday evening. “I would say our people were shocked. But some of them had heard about his arrest on TV prior to the Sunday service,” Bruce Hutcheson, chairman of the deacon board at Stokesland Baptist Church, said Monday of Tyndall’s departure. Hutcheson and other deacons who met with Tyndall after his release from the Alamance County Jail have said that he admitted to them that he engaged in inappropriate conduct with the child. Burlington authorities said the girl, now 14, was 8 and 9 years old when the alleged offenses occurred in Burlington. (4/10/2002, Alamance County Times-News)
http://www.thetimesnews.com/2000/00-04/00-04-11/news-1.html

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CLINTON, IL. - A state district judge levied a total of $20,000 in fines against a minister charged with two counts of molestation of a juvenile.

Rev. William Thomas Rose III, 51, pleaded guilty on April 24 to molesting two girls in Wilson while he was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Wilson in 1986. The girls are now ages 19 and 23, according to court records.

“Unless you come to grips with the fact that you molested two little girls, you’re in trouble - because it could happen again,” District Judge Wilson Ramshur told the defendant. “Contrition is one step toward salvation,” the judge added.

Ramshur also sentenced Rose to two consecutive 10-year prison terms, but suspended the sentences and placed him on probation for 10 years. As a condition of probation, the defendant is prohibited from being alone with anyone younger than 18.
Advocate 6/28/2000

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GREENWOOD, SC. - A minister and former school library aide has been charged with 16 more counts of sexually molesting children after police identified more victims from homemade videotapes.

Fernando Garcia - held on a $4 million bond - is now charged with a total of 44 counts of sexual misconduct with at least 15 victims, police say. “Investigators probably still have several weeks of work left to do - more charges are likely,” said the police chief. Garcia was charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and 14 counts of lewd acts on a minor. The latest charges accuse him of fondling children at an elementary school, where he worked for two years, and at the Abbeville Baptist Association, where he was pioneering a Hispanic ministry. The Chihuahua, Mexico-native is a husband and father of two teen-age children.AP 6/28/2000


Tales of horror: Sex crimes victimizing children rock community's foundations
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/indexjournal/01Jan25A.html

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EASTON - A pastor will stand trial on rape and child-abuse charges, a judge ruled yesterday. The Rev. Andrew Roy Tilghman, 32, was ordered to stand trial in circuit court on charges of first-degree rape and first-degree sexual offense against two girls.

Tilghman is pastor of the United Missionary Baptist Church. District Judge William Adkins III also ordered him to stand trial on nine counts each of second-degree rape, second-degree assault, child abuse and third- and fourth-degree sexual offense and two counts of second-degree sexual offense. His wife, Great Elizabeth Tilghman, 33, was ordered to stand trial on charges of child abuse and second-degree assault. Easton Police Detective Brandon Bobbick testified in a hearing that a 10-year-old revealed she had been beaten by Great Elizabeth Tilghman and that she and her sister had been sexually abused by Andrew Roy Tilghman. - AP May 24, 2000

Easton pastor's abuse trial on

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AIKEN. SC. - A former youth minister who admitted to molesting church members on camping trips and manipulating neighborhood boys with money and gifts during 3 decades has received a 30-year prison sentence.

Robert Dorsett, 65, pleaded guilty to 15 sex crimes involving children during an emotional hearing in which the offenses were read in detail to a hushed courtroom. Some of Dorsett's victims - who range in age now from 9 to 43 - attended the hearing and asked the judge to keep Dorsett from abusing more children. Friends and family members of Dorsett attended the hearing, lining up to speak on his behalf. Many were neighbors or co-workers who called him a father figure and hard worker.

Dorsett met many of his victims while he was a training director at First Baptist Church in Aug.a years ago. During trips in a church program, he would organize shaving cream fights and have the youths shower together, police said. He encouraged them to go streaking.

During a search of Dorsett's home, sheriff's officers found a brown suitcase containing X-rated videotapes and magazines along with candy, cookies and other items he gave the children, police said.

Investigators found notebooks where Dorsett kept track of neighborhood boys and their telephone numbers. Publicity about his arrest last year led to new allegations by victims who had tried to forget the abuse, police said. Augusta Chronicle, 11/30/99

Molester pleads guilty

http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/113099/met_124-3417.shtml

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TAMPA - A church deacon already accused of Internet sex crime against a teen-age girl faced more sexual extortion charges for allegedly terrorizing 5 other high school and college students. Robert Harvey Alexander, 41, a deacon at the First Baptist Church in Tampa, was being held in lieu of $150,000 bond after an appearance in federal court to advise him of the 5 additional charges.

Three 21-year-old students at Georgia Tech in Atlanta and two students at Plantation High School in Florida were the latest alleged victims of attempts to engage them in telephone and cybersex, federal agents said. Frank Gallagher, head of Tampa's FBI office, said the new charges grew out of interviews with people named on a "Victim's List." Agents seized the list with 99 names and e-mail addresses on it when they arrested Alexander for using the Internet in an attempt to extort a 16-year-old girl.

All of those on the list received virtually identical messages threatening to destroy their reputations unless they engaged in phone or computer sex with the sender. Gallagher called it "cyberterrorism" because of the fear created in the recipients. One women told her father, an assistant federal public defender, about the message. Another contacted university officials.

Investigators are trying to reach other women included on the list. So far, have traced 17 of them, and are continuing their search. Prosecutors said they hope the new charges will bolster their claim that Alexander is a methodical and dangerous sexual predator. AP, 11/11/99

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FAIRBANKS, AK. - A Baptist pastor from an interior village was arrested on
charges he molested his adopted teen-age daughter, State Troopers said.

Richard Cook, 46, is accused of having sex with the girl
twice and touching her genitals often during the past 19 months, according to court documents. He has been charged with one count each of first- and second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

Troopers said Cook first sexually touched the victim, then 13, in Oct. 1997.
Four months later, the molestation became an "almost daily" event
despite the girl's protests, according to court documents.

The girl's adoptive mother, who had started working outside the home,
suspected something was amiss because Cook "changed his behavior and
demeanor," according to the documents. But when she questioned her husband and daughter, both denied anything was going on, troopers said. The girl attempted suicide before she reported what happened.

Troopers said Cook has since admitted to the sexual contact, stating he knew his actions were wrong but that he "just got mixed up a bit,"
according to documents.

He was arrested at a Fairbanks motel. Cook and the women had traveled to town to seek help, said police.
AP 4/27/99

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MASCOTTE, FL. - A Baptist preacher was charged with
molesting three foster children left in his care. Pastor William Nathan
White, Jr., 50, was being held at the county jail on $45,000 bond,
charged with three counts of sexual battery of a child under age 12, a capital offense, jail officials said.

Following his arrest, 8 foster children and 3 adopted children were removed from his home and placed in other foster homes according to a spokeswoman for the state Dept. of Children & Families. State records show that White and his wife, Susan, have taken in at least 20 children since they were licensed by the state to become foster parents in 1995.

White first was accused of sexual battery when a 7-year-old girl, who lived
with the family for two weeks, told her natural mother during a visit monitored by social workers that White had molested her a sheriff's spokesman said. The girl told investigators that while sitting on White's lap, the minister asked her if anyone had ever touched her "private area." White then placed his hand inside her clothing and fondled her, reports said.

In a videotaped interview, a 10-year-old told authorities White had
repeatedly molested her since she came to live with him in Aug., according to reports. An 11-year-old, who lived with the Whites from Aug. into Nov., said the pastor often had her sit on his lap while she played computer games, and he once fondled her, records said.

Investigators plan to question every child the Whites have had in their
custody since 1995. State social workers are also reviewing their files to
determine if there were any concerns raised about the Whites' home in the past
AP 3/5/99

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DUBUQUE, IA. - A woman is suing her former pastor and the Baptist church for
which he worked. Sheldon D. Stotmeister is accused of having exploited the woman in order to have a sexual relationship when Kim Deutmeyer came to him for counseling. He is also alleged to have encouraged her to divorce her husband and to not tell anyone about the relationship.

Two weeks earlier, her ex-husband Darrell, filed a similar suit.

Stotmeister resigned in March and was arrested in Aug. on charges of sexual exploitation by a counselor as a result of his relationship. Telegraph Herald, 4/15/99

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FORT WORTH - Five women agreed to drop their
sexual-misconduct lawsuits against the founder of a Baptist church in exchange
for his admission to some of the affairs, according to court papers.

The lawsuits against Ollin Collins, founder of Harvest Baptist Church and a former board chairman of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, were dropped after Collins acknowledged that he "engaged in an adulterous relationship" with three of the women. But all five women retained the right to sue Collins again their attorney said. "We had asked him to apologize to the church and agree not to be in the pulpit until Sept. of 2000, and he refuses to do that," he said.

Four women and the family of another filed lawsuits in state district court
contending that Collins had used his position to force them into "lewd,
lascivious, obscene conduct."

Harvest Baptist Church, with 3,500 members, fired Collins in Nov.

The church and the women agreed to a settlement in which the church and its
insurance company would pay $400,000 to the women and their families, the Star-Telegram
reported. The church has paid about $100,000 of the settlement and will sell a
piece of property to cover the cost said an attorney for the church.
AP 4/22/99

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SAN FRANCISCO - A minister already facing theft and arson
charges was sued by 10 parishioners who allege he convinced them to take out
mortgage loans for church improvements and then stole the money.

Rev. Thomas McCall allegedly used the loan money, totaling
more than $850,000, to buy real estate in San Francisco and Southern Calif.,
according to the lawsuit. The members of the Concord Missionary Baptist Church
are seeking damages for breach of contract, breach of good faith and fair
dealing, fraud and negligent misrepresentation.

McCall had been under investigation since last Jan., when 7 parishioners
claimed the pastor convinced them and others to mortgage their homes to finance
$1.1 million in church renovations.

Records show church members raised a total of $2.9 million in equity,
donations and construction loans - about $1.1 million more than was necessary
for the work.

In addition to 4 counts of grand theft for allegedly taking $2.5 million in
church funds, including the $850,000 mentioned in the suit, McCall also faces
an arson charge for allegedly trying to destroy financial records by setting
his apartment on fire. He has been dismissed from the church and the trial was
scheduled to begin Jan. 25.
AP, 10/14/98

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WASHINGTON, DC. - A Baptist minister in Texas who had sex
with two women while counseling them about their marriages lost his appeal to
the Supreme Court. He now must pay each one $115,000.

The court, without comment, turned away Rev. Shelby
Baucum's
argument that a federal jury violated his religious freedom by deciding he had
committed malpractice and breached his fiduciary duties. Baucum
had sexual relationships with two women who were church members and employees
in 1991. One woman was fired from her job as the church receptionist and the
other lost her job as his administrative secretary when they disclosed the
relationships. Baucum was asked to resign, which he
did.

The women then sued him in federal court, and each won awards of $30,000 in
compensatory damages and $85,000 in punitive damages. Baucum
appealed, contending the jury had punished him for what he said was a mixture
of secular and spiritual counseling - the equivalent of "clergy
malpractice."

But in upholding the awards, the Court of Appeals ruled that the
religious-freedom difficulties posed by such a finding were not present in
Baucum's case. The appeals court ruling added: "The
First Amendment does not categorically insulate religious relationships from
judicial scrutiny, for to do so would necessarily extend constitutional
protection to the secular components of these relationships É To hold otherwise
would impermissibly place a religious leader in a preferred position in our
society."
AP, 10/5/98

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APOPKA, FL. - A minister who molested third-graders at his
church school couldn't promise that he wouldn't molest again, and so was
sentenced to prison for 7 years and 4 months, followed by 10 years of
probation. The judge acknowledged the remorse of David Joe Rich,
55, and that he took responsibility for his crimes, but said she wanted to
ensure he would not harm anyone again.

Rich, former pastor of Springs Community Baptist Church, pleaded guilty to
molesting 2 girls and trying to molest a third during the 1995-96 school year.
He fondled the girls, ages 8 and 9, at his desk while other students were in
the classroom, said the prosecutor. The desk concealed the probing.

Rich apologized and made no excuses for his conduct but could not explain
it. With God's help and counseling, he said, he hoped never to molest again.
But he said he would be foolish to make a "100 percent" guarantee. He
had resigned when confronted about the abuse 2 years after it ended.

While on probation, Rich must get counseling. He cannot be alone with
children younger than 18 or live near a school or other place where children
visit. The judge told Rich he should bring his ministry to prison. "There
are people in prison who could use your services," she said.
Orlando Sentinel, 12/4/1998

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NORRISTOWN, PA. - A clergyman was charged with murdering a
4-year-old boy whom he and his wife had agreed to look after as a favor to the
child's impoverished mother, authorities said.


Rev. Javan McBurrow
, 47, beat Michael Davis
across the back of his legs as many as 10 times with a two-foot metal mason's
level, and then forced the child to march the length of the family's squalid
suburban home until he dropped, police said. They said the boy was being
punished for wetting his pants and for looking at one of the couple's daughters
in the bathroom.

McBurrows and his wife, Jane, took the boy to the
hospital, telling doctors he had fallen in the bathtub. They then fled with
their own five children to Georgia. The boy died soon after and an autopsy
showed he had been beaten over a prolonged period.

McBurrows, pastor of the Third Christian Church
was arrested for child endangerment in Georgia and returned to Philadelphia.

The 4-year-old, his 7-year-old sister and 5-year-old brother had been living
with the McBurrows for about a month because their
mother, who also has 3 other children, could not care for them.

After being charged with first-degree murder, McBurrows
was remanded to jail with bond set at $500,000. Police who searched the
family's home described the two-story house as a "squalid,
uninhabitable" dwelling with only one bed. The property has since been
condemned.
Reuters 1/15/99
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And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. KJV John 1:1-5


The Truth of who Jesus Christ is can set you free!
Call upon his name!
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