A 62-year-old man who served as a First Baptist Church pastor when a teenage girl accused him of giving her a spiked drink and sexually abusing her appeared in court on Saturday in the Florida Keys. Rev. Monte LaVelle Chitty, a registered police volunteer, appeared before Monroe County Circuit Judge James W. Morgan III at the Marathon Courthouse wearing a light blue jumpsuit and handcuffs. Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Chitty on March 4 after they found incriminating text messages to the girl including, “I prefer you pass out after I play not before” and “You can’t...

A South Florida pastor accused of sexually battering a 15-year-old girl in his church became a wanted man Monday after skipping out on scheduled court hearings. He’s believed to be on the run. Monte Chitty, the 62-year-old pastor of First Baptist Marathon, had been released on a $75,000 bond soon after his March arrest. Prosecutors say Chitty, who was supposed to be arraigned Monday, fled in a white van with out-of-state plates and is no longer believed to be in the Florida Keys. “Our understanding is that he’s already on the road and he’s left the state of Florida,” Monroe...

In a news release, Monroe County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Becky Herrin said deputies were informed of what happened after an anonymous caller reported overhearing a girl telling an adult that she had been raped. Herrin said the girl and her grandmother had boarded a dinghy and headed out to the harbor. Meanwhile, as deputies were searching for her, authorities received a second call. It was from Chitty, Herrin said. Chitty, Herrin said, told dispatchers “he believed he was about to be accused of something and he wanted to get ahead of it,” saying that “a young girl at...

A former youth pastor and educator was sentenced Thursday to a year in prison plus probation stemming from his arrest last year for child pornography. As the result of a plea deal, Edward Kelly

The assistant director of Chaparral Baptist Assembly Camp in Iowa Park has been jailed on charges of Indecency with a Child through Sexual Contact. Nathan Lee McDonald was arrested Wednesday by Wichita County Sheriff’s deputies.

First Baptist Church in Benton has been named, along with other Baptist organizations, in a civil lawsuit involving a 2009 sexual indecency case that resulted in the arrest of the Benton church’s music minister. In 2009, David Kent Pierce, who was 56 at the time of his conviction, was formerly a music minister at Benton’s First Baptist Church for 29 years until he was fired following the investigation. Pierce pleaded guilty in 2009 to 54 counts of sexual indecency with children, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. He was convicted in August 2009 by the Saline County Circuit Court and...

About four months before Patrick Stephen Miller's arrest on a charge accusing him of sexually assaulting a child at a Southern Baptist church in Little Rock, Miller's Oklahoma employer threw him a party and invited all the kids. In a July 31, 2018, letter to parents, First Moore Baptist Church Kids Pastor Walter Bradley announced that his colleague, Miller, would be departing, but that first there would be a gathering to "celebrate Patrick." On social media that day, Oklahoma City-area children were told, "Make sure you are in Kids Worship on the 19th to love on Patrick before...

According to the lawsuit, the school employed Suggs from around July 2003 until around May 2016. The suit alleges that Sugg met the victim in September 2014 a few weeks after the victim began to attend the school and Sugg quickly “ingratiated herself into Jane Doe’s life under the guise of faith-based mentorship.” The victim met Sugg after the teacher spoke to the school’s upper-school students during chapel about her own experience as a victim of child sexual abuse and her willingness to help any students with similar struggles, according to court documents. The lawsuit alleges that Sugg used her...

In keeping with nationwide trends, the Kentucky legislature extended the time period in which child sex abuse survivors can bring civil lawsuits and allowed that their lawsuits can be asserted not only against perpetrators, but also against institutions that fail to protect children. Under these new laws, Samantha Killary pursued her lawsuit for childhood sexual abuse against a Louisville police officer and also against Louisville Metro for “employing and empowering” him. The case is now pending before the Kentucky Supreme Court, with arguments about the validity of the new laws. Into this case, the Southern Baptist Convention...

A brief filed earlier this year by lawyers for the Executive Committee, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Lifeway, an SBC publisher, argues that a Kentucky law that changed the statute of limitations for making civil claims over abuse—and allowing survivors to sue third parties such as churches or police—should not be applied retroactively.