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A former youth pastor at a Charlottesville church will spend 30 days behind bars after pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a teenager in his care.

Jacob Daniel Kepple was arrested in December 2014 on two charges of taking indecent liberties with a child. The 36-year-old appeared in Charlottesville Circuit Court on Thursday to plead guilty to one of those charges as part of a plea agreement with the prosecution, who thereby dropped his second charge.

The prosecution said in court that between 2009 and 2011, while Kepple was a youth minister at the First Baptist Church on Park Street, he spent increasing amounts of one-on-one time with a high school girl who attended First Baptist that grew increasingly inappropriate, though the two never engaged in sexual activity. After the girl turned 18 and attended college, she spoke up about the inappropriate behavior Kepple had displayed, and that information was relayed to church leaders, prompting an investigation by the church and later police. Kepple resigned from his position after the allegations were made.

Judge Richard Moore agreed with the terms of the plea agreement; Kepple was sentenced to five years in prison with all but 30 days suspended. He will have to register on the sex offender registry and never contact the victim in the case or her family.

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