Published June 3, 2019

Fifth of six parts

Pastor Ruben Garcia was arrested nearly two years ago in Hays County, prosecuted on charges of sexually assaulting a teenage girl and prohibited by a judge from being alone with children.

But the preacher kept his job at a Southern Baptist church.

Garcia, 60, sang hymns and taught kids about the Lord at Betania Baptist Church in Austin, a church so small that Sunday services feel more like a family gathering.

Ruben Garcia

In February 2016, a teenage girl told police in the Austin suburb of Buda, where Garcia lives, that he put his hands down her pants and sexually assaulted her multiple times in the summers of 2013 and 2014, records show. Police arrested Garcia in June 2017, and he was later released on bond.

Then Garcia continued serving as co-pastor of his church, where few members of the congregation questioned the appropriateness of their spiritual leader remaining in his post with sexual-assault charges pending against him.

Their support continued in 2018 after Garcia pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and avoided prison — but was prohibited from being around children as part of the terms of his sentence.

“All I have to say is that I love him,” said Edel Perez, a longtime church member.

Garcia is hardly the only Southern Baptist pastor to stay in the pulpit after being accused of a sex crime. The Houston Chronicle confirmed that since the 1990s, at least 30 SBC churches were aware that a pastor, employee or volunteer had faced allegations of sexual misconduct in the U.S. — yet the churches hired them anyway or allowed them to continue serving in their spiritual roles.

At two churches that harbored predators, employees faced criminal charges of failing to notify authorities about an allegation of sexual abuse involving a child. And in at least seven cases, Southern Baptist ministers who have been accused of sex crimes are still serving at a church.

These new revelations come as the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest and most influential coalition of Baptist churches in the United States, is wrestling with a burgeoning sexual abuse crisis as it prepares for its upcoming national meeting in Birmingham, Ala.

An investigation published in February by the Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News, “Abuse of Faith,” sparked a national outcry. Among the findings: At least 10 SBC churches knowingly welcomed pastors, ministers and volunteers since 1998 who had faced accusations of sexual misconduct.

More than 350 readers contacted the newspapers to offer tips or share their own stories of abuse. Some said they were concerned about other Southern Baptist churches that employed sexual predators out of a misguided sense of forgiveness or failing to hold a beloved pastor accountable.

With the help of tips from those readers and by reviewing news stories and court records, the Chronicle found another 20 churches that knew an employee or volunteer had been accused of a sex crime but allowed them to keep serving at the church.

“Once they’ve committed a crime of that nature, they should not work in any capacity around children,” said Rodney Pires, owner of Church Security 360 Degrees, an Atlanta firm that helps churches strengthen their hiring and security practices.

Pires said it’s commendable for churches to offer people a second chance. But sexual abuse is a crime, he said, and putting abusers in a position of trust places other children at risk.

“The number one priority of the shepherd is the sheep,” Pires said.

At least one church that knowingly employed an offender is tied to SBC’s leadership.

In the early 1990s, First Baptist Church in Rockwall welcomed back a former part-time church employee, Jason Leon Austin, as a volunteer assistant in the church’s youth program, despite a prior conviction of indecency with a child in 1991 in Harris County and despite a separate complaint that he had molested another child inside the church, according to court documents and a deposition.

A lawsuit filed against the church in Rockwall by one of Austin’s victims alleged that pastor Steve Swofford knew about the prior criminal conviction. Swofford is a past president of the Southern Baptist Convention of Texas and helped select the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, Ronnie Floyd.

Swofford declined to comment for this story. The lawsuit was dismissed because the statute of limitations had lapsed for complaints related to the alleged assaults.

SBC President J.D. Greear said he was “broken” by the findings in the newspapers’ investigation and promised concrete reforms to prevent sexual abuse. Greear said any Southern Baptist church that knowingly employs a sex offender doesn’t belong in the SBC.

“There can simply be no ambiguity about the church’s responsibility to protect the abused and be a safe place for the vulnerable,” Greear said in response to the newspapers’ stories. “Abuse can never be tolerated, minimized, hidden, or ‘handled internally.’ Those in leadership who turn a blind eye toward abuse are complicit with it and must be held accountable.”

But accountability is rare. Southern Baptist churches don’t belong to a diocese or answer to a bishop. From tiny churches such as Betania to megachurches with thousands of members, every Southern Baptist church operates independently and ordains or hires its own pastors.

The result: SBC leaders have no idea how many churches employ sex offenders.

SEARCH OUR DATABASE: Look at Southern Baptist church officials who were convicted or pleaded guilty

In Austin, Garcia’s church is still listed in the Southern Baptist Convention’s directory, even though he continued to preach after his arrest.

Last year, Garcia reached an agreement with prosecutors in Hays County and pleaded guilty to a charge of enticing a child with intent to commit a felony. He was sentenced to 10 years deferred adjudication, a type of probation.

As part of the terms of the plea deal, Garcia didn’t have to register as a sex offender, but he was barred from being near children without supervision, except for his grandchildren. He currently serves as the church’s music minister.

“If you want a close relationship with Jesus Christ, study his word,” Garcia told the congregation at Betania at a recent worship service. “You’ll learn a lot more about him.”

After the service, Garcia declined to speak with a reporter. His lawyer, Bob Phillips, also declined to discuss details of the allegations against Garcia. But he said his client agreed to step down from his duties dealing directly with children.

“He’s not doing that kind of stuff anymore,” Phillips said of Garcia’s previous youth ministry. “He is well aware of the dangers of being misconstrued if he were alone with an individual or several youths.”

No oversight

With a decentralized network of 47,000 churches in the U.S., the SBC is trying to figure out how to respond more quickly to churches that employ pastors accused of sexual abuse, said Roger “Sing” Oldham, a spokesman for the SBC’s executive committee.

The SBC has no investigative powers of its own, Oldham said, and it never received a complaint about Betania Baptist Church.

“I didn’t know about it until you raised the question with me,” Oldham said.

The lack of oversight means churches might employ sex offenders for years without the SBC doing anything about it.

In Houston, registered sex offender Michael Lee Jones founded Cathedral of Faith church 20 years ago. His church had no problem joining the SBC — even though Jones pleaded guilty in 1998 to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl who was supposed to be taking counseling sessions with him. The pastor was sentenced to eight years of deferred adjudication.

“Abuse can never be tolerated, minimized, hidden, or ‘handled internally.’ Those in leadership who turn a blind eye toward abuse are complicit with it and must be held accountable.” J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention

The girl said she had known Jones all her life.

“Pastor Jones took advantage of my trust and confidence in him as our congregation’s pastor to cause me to have sexual intercourse with him,” she said in a sworn affidavit.

Jones did not return messages. Cathedral of Faith church member Betty Cotton defended the pastor.

“You need to know the whole story,” Cotton said.

What’s the whole story?

“You figure it out,” she answered. “I don’t know anything more than you do. He’s been forgiven, OK?”

In February, Greear called for greater scrutiny of Cathedral of Faith and nine other churches that were mentioned in the newspapers’ investigation of sexual abuse at Southern Baptist churches.

Greear’s inquiry had mixed results. Southern Baptist leaders in Houston raised questions about Jones’ past criminal conviction, and his church voluntarily withdrew from the SBC.

The church also lost its home at Aldine Independent School District, where the congregation rented space at Spence Elementary School for Sunday worship services.

“In light of the information regarding the leader of the church, there has been distraction and substantial disruption to the district operations,” Deputy Superintendent Selina Chapa wrote in an April 4 letter notifying the church the school district was canceling the rental agreement.

Another church on Greear’s list, Trinity Baptist Church in Ashburn, Ga., dismissed a music minister who a church official says admitted he molested young teens decades ago.

Trinity’s pastor, Rodney Brown, told the SBC’s news organization, Baptist Press, that the music minister was a friend who had repented of his past sins and was allowed to serve at the church. Brown later apologized for how he handled the situation.

“I have come to realize that I failed my duty as pastor in not taking action against an individual who had been accused of child abuse in the past at another church,” Brown said in a statement.

“I now realize that what I first thought was an isolated incident was much more,” Brown said. “I should have understood that earlier and not doing so was a great mistake on my part. I cannot apologize enough for my actions.”

Forgiving sin

Other churches on Greear’s list denied any wrongdoing or blamed former pastors for poor hiring decisions.

Sovereign Grace Churches in Louisville, Ky., rejected calls for an independent review after it was accused in a lawsuit of covering up sexual abuse. The lawsuit was dismissed on procedural grounds.

At First Baptist Church of Bedford, pastor Billy Taylor said the hiring in 2015 of worship pastor Charles Adcock, who faced 29 counts of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Alabama, was an earnest but misguided attempt by a former pastor to help Adcock and his family.

Charles Adcock

Adcock had insisted he was innocent. Without admitting any guilt, he pleaded to a single charge of second-degree sodomy in January 2016 and served 15 months. He is now a registered sex offender.

“It was a bad hiring practice at the time,” said Taylor, who noted the pastor who hired Adcock no longer works at the church.

State and local Southern Baptist groups are also trying to prevent churches from employing ministers who were accused of sexual abuse. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention removed a small San Antonio church from its membership in May after Baptist leaders found out the church's pastor, Erbey Valdez, is a registered sex offender.

Valdez was a married middle school principal in the West Texas town of Sonora when he was arrested in October 2009 on charges of having an improper sexual relationship with a 17-year-old high school student and taking sexually explicit photographs of her.

Valdez, who pleaded guilty to the charges but served no time in prison, said he and his wife reconciled and started a Christian counseling service for troubled couples. Last year, they founded New Spirit Church in a strip mall on Culebra Road near Fast Eddie’s Billiards.

“I understand that some would say, ‘I would never go to that church,’” Valdez said. “And that’s OK.” But he emphasized that his crime occurred before he became a church leader and he hasn’t tried to hide from his past. The congregation knows what he did, he said, and they accept him anyway.

During a recent Sunday service, children gleefully gave roses to their mothers to celebrate Mother’s Day and Valdez prayed over the group of women. The preacher cried during a Bible study group as he talked about the parable of the prodigal son, his own troubled past and the redemptive power of God.

“We feel like a family,” said Francisco Vega, a deacon at the church. “We know how repentant he is. It comes from the heart.”

The importance of forgiveness is a fundamental Christian belief. But forgiving a convicted sex offender doesn’t mean putting him in a position of trust at a church, said Dee Parsons, a victims’ advocate in Raleigh, N.C., who has blogged for years about sexual abuse cases in Southern Baptist churches.

“Yes, God can forgive anybody. We get that,” Parsons said. “But pedophiles and rapists and sex offenders will target any organization that has young people in it. And they’ll go to places where people are trusting and where they can manipulate people.”

James Cantor, a Canadian psychologist and expert on pedophilia and sexual behavior, said it’s important to remember that there are different types of sexual abusers. For people who suffer from pedophilia — a sexual attraction toward prepubescent children — there is no known cure.

“Nobody has ever shown a meaningful way to turn a pedophile into a non-pedophile,” Cantor said. But he emphasized that many of his patients don’t want to hurt children, and they make a deliberate effort to avoid situations where they’re alone with them.

Cantor said it’s a red flag if a pedophile claims to have changed and wants to work with children.

“Forgiving somebody does not mean taking every word they say at face value,” Cantor said.

Changing church culture

The problem of harboring predators goes beyond the churches singled out by Greear. Other churches have done the same thing without facing any repercussions from the SBC.

When Kevin Glenn served as pastor at the Southern Baptist Memorial Baptist Church in Columbia, Mo., nearly 20 years ago, he learned disturbing news about the church’s popular organist, Tammy Irovic, who performed with the children’s choir.

Tammy Irovic

A visitor at the church recognized Irovic as a registered sex offender and told Glenn, who was relatively new to the church. Glenn discovered Irovic had been convicted in Lubbock in 1990 on a felony charge of indecency with a child.

Glenn said he met with other church leaders to discuss his concerns about Irovic serving in a church role. He was surprised by their response: They already knew about Irovic’s status as a sex offender.

Irovic had repented and apologized, they said, and they had decided to give her a second chance.

Glenn said he worked out a compromise — Irovic would be allowed to remain as a church member, but she had to step down as organist. But tensions flared again a year later when Irovic wanted to host youth group meetings at her house.

Glenn objected. Irovic’s defenders sided with her. Irovic eventually left the church, but Glenn said he was reprimanded by the church’s personnel committee, and he later resigned.

“I don’t get it, man,” said Glenn, who is now a pastor in New Mexico. “That one still bewilders me.”

Messages left with Irovic’s new church in Columbia weren’t returned.

The new church isn’t affiliated with the SBC. Irovic is a pianist there.

Sex offenders, but still trusted Churches in the Southern Baptist Convention have knowingly employed sex offenders who worked in positions of trust since the 1990s. Experts say it’s commendable that churches give people a second chance. But giving accused sexual abusers a church role as spiritual leaders puts children at risk. “Once they’ve committed a crime of that nature, they should not work in any capacity around children,” said Rodney Pires, owner of Church Security 360 Degrees, an Atlanta firm that helps churches strengthen their hiring and security practices. Created by Jordan Rubio

Failure to report

Southern Baptist churches are sometimes the first to learn of an allegation of sexual abuse against an employee. In many states, including Texas, adults are legally required to report suspected cases of child abuse to authorities. Failure to do so is a crime.

In Abilene, Amanda McKee, a day care supervisor at Wylie Baptist Church, was arrested last year after police charged her with failing to notify authorities after she had received multiple complaints about one of her employees, Benjamin Roberts.

Roberts was seen sitting with children on his lap and becoming visibly aroused, court records allege. Employees saw him go into the bathroom alone with boys. And parents raised concerns with McKee about Roberts’ behavior.

“Several parents reported to McKee that they didn’t want their child around Roberts because of the way he had been touching their children,” according to a criminal complaint filed against McKee.

McKee told authorities she had problems with her memory and didn’t remember the specific complaints. Roberts was charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child. McKee, his boss, was arrested and accused of failing to report the alleged abuse. Both cases are pending, and they no longer work at the day care.

Wade Burleson, a Southern Baptist pastor in Oklahoma who believes the SBC needs to do more to prevent sexual abuse, said changing the attitudes of some church members is just as important as adopting strong policies and reforms.

At the SBC’s annual meeting in San Antonio in 2007, Burleson proposed creating a database that would keep track of church employees and volunteers accused of abuse. A year later, an SBC committee rejected Burleson’s proposal, saying the independence of Southern Baptist churches prevented the SBC from mandating a database.

More recently, Burleson made another proposal to the SBC for a database of offenders, which is being considered by a different SBC commission. It could unveil its findings in June, when thousands of Baptists from across the country will gather for the SBC’s annual meeting.

Burleson said he’s hopeful that the SBC will adopt his proposal. But he also believes the culture at some Southern Baptist churches needs to change. Forgiving sex offenders, he said, doesn’t mean giving them unfettered access to children. Yet some people don’t understand the risk.

“I’ve come across it within my own church,” said Burleson.

Years ago, a member of his congregation had been arrested for indecent exposure, Burleson said. The man later asked to work with children in the church’s youth ministry and didn’t understand why Burleson told him no.

“He said, ‘Wade, you preach about grace; you preach about forgiveness. Why can’t I work with young people?’ ” Burleson recalled. The pastor said the church member had crossed a line that disqualified him from ministry at his church forever.

“Does it mean you can’t be forgiven?” Burleson asked. “Of course not. You can be forgiven. But they will never, for life, be able to work with children.”

READ THE REST OF THE SERIES:

Part 1: Southern Baptist sexual abuse spreads as leaders reject reforms

Part 2: Southern Baptist churches hired ministers accused of past sex offenses

Part 3: All too often, Southern Baptist youth pastors take advantage of children

Part 4: Missionaries left trail of abuse, but leaders stayed quiet

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John Tedesco, a longtime investigative reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, has exposed shady telemarketers at the Texas Highway Patrol Museum, bribery scandals at San Antonio City Hall and the deaths of oil-and-gas workers on the Eagle Ford Shale. He joined the Chronicle projects team in January. Follow him on Twitter @John_Tedesco and reach him by email at john.tedesco@chron.com.

Jon Shapley is a staff photo and video journalist for the Houston Chronicle. A native Houstonian, he joined the Chronicle in 2015. He previously worked at the NPR affiliate in Austin, as well as monthly magazines in Austin and San Antonio. He can be reached at jon.shapley@chron.com.

Design by Jordan Rubio and Jasmine Goldband

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