Right-Wing Christian Cleric Caught Soliciting Underage Boys for Sex
04 November 2007
After two weeks of investigation, Lakeland police arrested a trusted church member and accused him of sex offenses involving three boys he mentored at the church.
"This is a pastor's worst nightmare," Dennis said.
Marshal Seymour, a 40-year-old student ministry volunteer at Lakeland's prominent First Baptist Church at the Mall, turned himself in Friday night after Lakeland police issued a warrant.
Seymour met his victims through the church and paid them to perform sex acts or to keep quiet about sexual encounters, Lakeland police said. The boys were 15, 16 and 17 at the time of the incidents, which occurred during the past two years, according to arrest documents.
Seymour is charged with three counts of using a child in sexual performance and one count each of unlawful sexual activity and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.And I love this part of the article. Man, it reads a bit like the Roman Catholic child sex scandals, doesn't it, with clergy and volunteers getting caught and then just going on to another church?
The Lakeland police investigation revealed that Seymour had been arrested on felony sex charges in Mobile County, Ala., in 1998. The circumstances were similar, with Seymour accused of victimizing a boy he met at church, Lakeland police said.
However, the charges were reduced to misdemeanor assault, and Seymour was sentenced to a suspended one-year sentence in 1999, police said. That's the same year he came to Lakeland and First Baptist Church at the Mall.