Former Indiana youth pastor sentenced to 20 years for molesting young boys from 2012 to 2019
(The AEGIS Alliance) – A man in Indiana who used to be a youth pastor was handed down a twenty-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of children. He had confessed to molesting a number of young boys between the ages of 11 and 13 from 2011 to 2019.
In November 2020, Scott Christner gave a guilty plea in court to several charges of child molestation.
The disgraced youth pastor that was employed by the First Baptist Church located in Goshen, Indiana will begin his prison sentence on Wednesday.
Christner, his lawyer, in addition to a character witness he mentioned, had fought in court to get off with just probation, however, he got the maximum prison time permitted, his plea deal shows, according to WNDU-TV.
A judge in Elkhart County sentenced Christner to three nine-year prison terms for felonies, as well as he was ordered to serve twenty of those years behind bars, along with 7 years being suspended.
At the court hearing, Christner apologized for the victim’s pain he’d created, and he also wanted to take it all back, WSBT-TV reported.
One victim, in addition to the other victim’s parents, had been inside the courtroom on Wednesday.
A victim’s dad that participated in the court hearing stated he’d take his children around Christner for sporting activities, birthday celebrations, in addition to “church functions,” while not aware of Christner’s actions.
Another victim’s parent mentioned in court that “You molested my son at a party. There were other people around.”
A victim composed a letter concerning the previous pastor’s “double life, pretending to be a kind, giving man, while also molesting kids.”
Christner molested his initial victim in 2012, and the abuse carried on up until as recently as July of 2019. He was apprehended by authorities 4 months afterward.
Jeffrey Childers – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
