Paul Edward “Acton” Bowen is serving time in Kilby Correctional Facility where he was admitted in December 2019 after he entered guilty pleas in Etowah County to 28 counts of sexual abuse involving six male victims ages 13 to 16. His minimum release date is 2980.

Bowen pleaded guilty to traveling to meet a child for sexual purposes, second-degree sodomy, enticing a child for immoral purposes and second-degree sexual abuse. He was sentenced to 20 years on the first two charges, 10 years on third and a year on the fourth, all to run concurrently.

The Gadsden native was the founder of Acton Bowen Outreach Ministries. At the time of his arrest, he was a self-described speaker, best-selling author and visionary.

Police have said the victim in that case is a Hoover boy younger than 16 but older than 12 who is a family acquaintance of Bowen. Court records in the Jefferson County case say Bowen engaged in deviate sexual intercourse with the teen boy, and also enticed him into getting into a 2010 Jeep Wrangler for the purpose of sodomy.

One of Bowens’ victims, a teen boy over the age of 12 but under the age of 16, said Bowen exposed him to deviate sexual intercourse from 2006 through 2009. Another victim claims the abuse happened from 2014 through 2017 and yet another reported to lawmen that he suffered the abuse from January through June of 2018.