A report published in two Texas newspapers Feb. 9 detailed 20 years of sexual abuse allegations against Southern Baptist church leaders. The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published a database of Baptist leaders charged with crimes. Based on the database compiled by the newspapers, and also using AL.com archives, StopBaptistpredators.org, other media reports, and information from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and the Alabama Department of Corrections, AL.com compiled a list of 22 Alabama Baptists who have served churches in the state and been charged with sexual abuse since 1998.

Jefferson County Jail

Mack Allen Davis

Davis, the former youth pastor at at Lakeside Baptist Church in Birmingham from 1977-99, pleaded guilty in 2014 to six charges of sexually abusing minors in Jefferson County.

Davis joined the staff of Lakeside Baptist Church as minister of youth and recreation in 1977. By the next summer, he was director of the church's summer camp. Victims said he molested them on church trips to Baptist camps. Davis was sentenced to 10 years in prison and is currently an inmate at Bibb County Correctional Facility.

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Timothy Chun-Chuck Mann

Mann resigned after more than six years as music minister and choir director at the 1,700-member Shades Crest Baptist Church in Hoover when he was charged in 2007 with a third-degree sex offense and child abuse in Maryland. Mann, 47, was charged with engaging in inappropriate sexual acts with a girl while he was minister of music and youth choir director at the First Baptist Church in Gaithersburg, Md., from 1991-98 The alleged abuse began in December 1992, when the victim was 14, and continued until 1996, police said. The incidents occurred in his office at the church. In 2008, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

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Luis Federico Garcia

Garcia, then 66, pleaded guilty Dec. 11, 2006, to three counts of first-degree sexual abuse involving three girls ages 6, 7 and 8. He had been pastor of Iglesia La Roca, an Hispanic congregation which held services on a campus owned by First Baptist Church of Pelham. He registered as a sex offender on Feb. 15, 2013.

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Ralph Lee Aaron

Aaron, 54, pastor of Grace Christian Fellowship Church in Andalusia, was arrested in 2009 and charged with 152 counts of sodomy, sexual abuse, sexual torture and possession of obscene matter involving children. He was accused of sexual abuse and using a sex toy in the torture of young boys on church camping trips. Aaron is currently serving prison time at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Jefferson County.

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Colbert Co. Jail

Charles Kyle Adcock

Adcock was charged in 2015 with 29 counts of rape and sodomy involving a 14-year-old girl he met at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals, where he had worked as a youth minister.

Adcock said he was innocent but pleaded guilty to a single charge of second-degree sodomy in January 2016 and served 15 months. He is now a registered sex offender.

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Shelby Co. Jail

Daniel M. Acker Jr.

Acker, a former youth minister at Westwood Baptist Church in Alabaster and minister of music and youth at Mayberry Baptist Church in Montevallo, and later a teacher, pleaded guilty in 2012 to eight counts of child sexual abuse and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Acker was ordered to pay $1.5 million to seven youth who say he molested them, according to a 2017 court settlement.

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Gerald "Jerry" Ray Hutcheson

Hutcheson, 65, of Florala, was convicted in 2007 of sexual abuse in Covington County. He was formerly pastor of Red Oak Baptist Church in Baker. He was released from prison in 2009 and is registered as a sex offender.

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Gary Ladell Smitherman

Smitherman, 59, former children's and youth minister at Friendship Baptist Church in Clanton, was found guilty in 2018 of sexually abusing a child under 12. Smitherman knew the 10-year-old victim from the church and then began to tutor her outside of the church.

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Jeffery Dale Eddie

Eddie, a former children's minister at Highland Park Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals for 14 years, pleaded guilty in 2014 to child sex abuse and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The 41-year-old entered pleas to 16 counts of sodomy for oral sex, three counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12 and one count of possession of child pornography.

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James Vernon McNeal

McNeal, 39, a children's minister at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Hazel Green, was charged in 2017 with sexual abuse of a child under 12.

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Gregory "Lee" Bowman

Bowman, 29, was formerly director of health and wellness for Eden Westside Baptist Church in Pell City. He was indicted by a grand jury in 2010 for one count of sodomy and one count of sexual abuse of minors. Now 38, Bowman registered as a sex offender on May 14, 2014.

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Walter John Bowen

Walter John Bowen of Robertsdale was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2010 after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a child under 12. Bowen sexually abused a child at the First Baptist Church in Spanish Fort, where he served as a minister of music.

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Donald Brent Page

Page, 33, resigned as youth minister of Dogwood Grove Baptist Church in Montevallo when he was indicted by a Memphis grand jury on charges of crossing state lines to have sex with a minor. The Calera resident was arrested in 2007 for traveling to Tennessee to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl for sex, according to Memphis FBI. He was arrested at a Memphis apartment with condoms and wine coolers in hand by the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Task Force. Page had also worked at Siluria Baptist Church in Alabaster and Hillcrest Baptist Church in Birmingham. Now 43, Page registered as a sex offender on Aug. 1, 2012.

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Jay Clair Strickland

Strickland, former administrative pastor who was director of the medical and security ministry at Sharon Heights Baptist Church in Brookside, was charged in 2014 with two counts of sexual abuse and one count of first degree sodomy. He was convicted in 2016. Now 54, he registered as a sex offender on Sept. 27, 2016.

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Zachary Reed Emerson

Emerson was a part-time youth employee at East Memorial Baptist Church in Prattville in 2009 when he was charged with three felony counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes. He was also charged with three counts of second-degrees sexual abuse.

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AL.com

Doug Myers

Myers was minister to adults at Concord Baptist Church in Russellville in 2002, and abuse allegations against him split the church. He was later convicted of sexual abuse in Florida. Myers admitted to molesting a minor he met at a church in Eustis, Fla., according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Lake County in 2006; he pleaded guilty in 2007 and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Before his release from prison in December 2012, new allegations surfaced in Maryland, where Myers had been a pastor. He was arrested on charges of custodial child abuse and sex offenses against multiple victims from 1995-2001. He was convicted in Calvert County, Md., and is serving a 15-year sentence.

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AL.com

Paul Edward Acton Bowen

Evangelist Paul Edward Acton Bowen, 37, a Gadsden native and founder of Acton Bowen Outreach Ministries, was charged in 2018 with second-degree sodomy, enticing a child to enter a vehicle or house for immoral purposes, and second-degree sex abuse. Bowen worked with youth at Whorton Bend Baptist Church in Gadsden and spoke at evangelistic youth events. Bowen was released on bail. He has said he is innocent of the charges.

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John Robert "Robbie" Hiller

Hiller was the youth director at Meek Baptist Church in Arley. He pleaded guilty in 2011 to sodomy in the 2nd degree after he was accused of sexually abusing a girl in his youth group. He registered as a sex offender on Nov. 13, 2015, according to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

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Brian Pesnell

Pesnell served as associate pastor and youth minister at Munford Baptist Church from 2006-2010; youth pastor at Bethel Baptist Church in Moody from about 2002-2006; and youth pastor at Gateway Baptist Church in Fultondale before that.

In March 2011, Pesnell was indicted on charges of second-degree rape and second-degree sexual assault by a St. Clair County grand jury, according to court records. Pesnell pleaded guilty to third-degree assault, received a 12-month suspended sentence and was placed on 24-month unsupervised probation. He was ordered to have no contact with the victim in the case, and also ordered to pay court costs. The rape charge was dismissed.

In 2015, the Talladega Daily Home published an interview with two women who had been in his youth group at Gateway Baptist who said he had behaved inappropriately with them 15 years earlier.

Pesnell was charged in 2015 with sexual abuse of a child under 12. He was arrested and released on bail. That charge was dismissed in 2017.

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John Lankston "Bill" Anderson Jr.

The former Carbon Hill First Baptist Church pastor, who left that church in 1995, was later charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse. Anderson, who sometimes went by “Bill,” was also a pastor at Southside Baptist Church in Russellville, Natural Bridge Baptist Church, West Blocton Baptist Church, Coker Baptist Church, Hartselle Baptist Church and associate pastor at Sage Avenue Baptist Church in Mobile. In August 2002, Anderson entered a plea of guilty to three counts of first-degree sexual abuse in Walker County. In exchange for his guilty plea, he received a split sentence to a term of ten years on each count — to be served concurrently with each other and with his sentence from convictions in Franklin County, Alabama — with plaintiff to serve three years in confinement, followed by a period of probation. After he entered his guilty plea, Anderson was transferred to Miller County, Arkansas, where he pleaded guilty to charges of sexual abuse in exchange for a 10-year sentence. Anderson was then transferred to the Alabama Department of Corrections to serve three years of confinement of his split sentence. After he completed his confinement in Alabama, he was again transferred to Arkansas to serve the ten-year sentence to confinement resulting from his Arkansas conviction. He was released from prison in 2014.

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Calvary Baptist Church in Wetumpka

Garett Dykes

Dykes was removed as minister of Calvary Baptist Church in Wetumpka after his arrest in November 2004. Then 40, Dykes was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for producing child pornography. He pleaded guilty to filming himself fondling an 8-year-old female. He also pleaded guilty of nine counts of sexual abuse and four counts of production of obscene materials of people under 17, involving three victims under at 12 who were molested in his home.

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Ralph Randall Melton

Melton, who was the pastor of Prospect Baptist Church in Wilsonville at the time of his arrest, and his wife, Cathy G. Melton, of Jemison, pleaded guilty in 2005 to first-degree rape and sodomy in Chilton County District Court.

Melton was arrested in April 2004 after his daughter filed charges with the Chilton County Sheriff’s Office. The victim filed a complaint against her father in November 2003. Melton also served as pastor of New Salem Baptist Church in Thorsby and Big Springs Baptist Church in Vida.

Melton registered as a sex offender on Feb. 11, 2016.

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Sources include: "Abuse of Faith," a report by The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News

A report published in two Texas newspapers Feb. 9 detailed 20 years of sexual abuse allegations against Southern Baptist church leaders. The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published a database of Baptist leaders charged with crimes. Based on the database compiled by the newspapers, and also using AL.com archives, StopBaptistpredators.org, other media reports, and information from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and the Alabama Department of Corrections, AL.com compiled a list of 21 Alabama Baptists who have served churches in the state and been charged with sexual abuse since 1998. If you have additional information, please email Greg Garrison at ggarrison@al.com