A former youth pastor pleaded guilty Monday to sexual encounters with a pre-teenaged girl he mentored over four years at three churches, including one in Pekin.

With his family in court, Nicholas Lawrence, 27, showed no emotion when he acknowledged he now faces two prison sentences totaling between 12 and 120 years.

Lawrence, of Pekin, will learn his fate next month from judges in Peoria and Tazewell counties who presided over his related cases. He entered a similar, so-called blind plea in May in the Peoria case.

In both he was charged with predatory criminal sexual assault of the child he met when she was an 8-year-old student in his Bible study classes. The girl told investigators last summer she considered Lawrence her “spiritual mentor.”

They questioned her and Lawrence after the girl’s parents discovered as many as 75 letters that Lawrence wrote to her beginning in 2010. Lawrence acknowledged he burned about 50 of the girl’s letters to him when he learned her parents had contacted the police, a Tazewell County prosecutor revealed in court Monday.

Lawrence was dismissed last July from his youth pastor position at First Church of God in Pekin, where he had directed Bible study sessions and competitions involving other churches’ child members since 2012.

During two sessions in November 2013 and one last May, he and the girl had sexual encounters in a closet in the church, said Assistant State’s Attorney Larry Evans.

Lawrence also had contact with the girl while he practiced youth ministry at Peoria Heights Congregational Church and at Mt. Hawley Community Church in Peoria Heights, according to a prosecutor’s court affidavit.

The girl told investigators Lawrence began his relationship with her by discussing personal issues. He advanced it by touching various parts of her body, the affidavit stated.

In his Tazewell case, Lawrence pleaded guilty to one predatory child sex assault charge, punishable by six to 60 years in prison, while three others were dismissed.

He’ll be sentenced July 29, six days after his sentencing on the same charge and punishment range in Peoria County. The sentences will be served consecutively.

Another related charge of solicitation of child pornography, related to computer-kept photos of the girl, was dismissed with his guilty plea in the Peoria County case.

Follow Michael Smothers at Twitter.com/msmotherspekin