Former Magnolia pastor sentenced to 75 years for sexual assault of child

A former Magnolia-area pastor was sentenced to 75 years in prison after sexually assaulting a teen who lived in his home, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.

Ronald Wayne Mitchell, 59, was found guilty on five charges of sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony. He received 15 years for each charge on Tuesday, all stacked to a total 75 years in a Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility.

“Today, jurors let it be known that when a child finds the courage to come forward – our community will carefully weigh the facts and convict even without DNA or scientific evidence,” Chief Prosecutor Nancy Hebert said.

Mitchell was the pastor of the Body of Christ Ministry, a small church which moved around the region before being housed at the pastor’s Magnolia home.

Members of the church moved in with Mitchell, and their children were homeschooled. A search of the residence found that up to seven families lived there, Hebert said.

The victim told her mother about the abuse in October 2016, later telling investigators that she was fondled and raped from 2015 to 2016. She was 15 at the time.

The pastor told the teenager that if she ever told anyone about the abuse, that “she would be killed by God and it would be her fault that ‘the movement’ was destroyed,” according to the district attorney’s office.

Mitchell allegedly took the girl on trips to Galveston, San Antonio and Las Vegas, according to a Houston Chronicle report. And sheriff's deputies said the preacher's wife took her to a Conroe health clinic, posing as her mother to authorize birth-control injections.

Other former church member's corroborated accounts of Mitchell's allegedly controlling behavior and said he wouldn't allow them to have contact with people who weren't members of the church. One family member of a churchgoer told the Houston Chronicle in November 2016 that the church was like a cult, and that many of the church members were financially unstable.

Another former resident said that she'd been “judged” by Mitchell, and that she was kicked out of the church for being “rebellious.” After sleeping outside in a truck for months because she had nowhere to go, he let her back inside.

The victim testified for more than five hours about the abuse. The trial lasted two weeks.

Mitchell's attorneys argued that prosecutors were trying to win the case by attacking Mitchell's religious beliefs. Conversely, prosecutors maintained that Mitchell used religion to control and manipulate the members, according to the district attorney's office.

The “defendant was just like any other child predator, using whatever means necessary to gain the trust of those around the child and to convince the child to stay quiet," Hebert said. “Instead of using threats or gifts, this defendant used their religious convictions to exercise control."