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Pious Perverts
See other Pious Perverts Articles

Title: Prestonwood Baptist minister arrested in sex sting
Source: www.dallasnews.com
URL Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon ... tministerarrest.107c9d887.html
Published: May 17, 2008
Author: By TANYA EISERER and SAM HODGES
Post Date: 2008-05-17 04:49:53 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 261
Comments: 15

A minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church faces a charge of online solicitation of a minor after police say he drove from Plano to Bryan to have sex with a 13-year-old girl.

The "girl" was a police officer pretending to be a teenager as part of an ongoing Internet sex sting. Joe Barron, one of about 40 ministers at the 26,000-member megachurch, could face up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the second-degree felony.

Computer equipment was seized from Mr. Barron's home, and police said they were investigating evidence he had online conversations with more than a dozen girls.

Bryan authorities say the minister began crying Thursday morning as police arrested him. "He said he was feeling guilt and shame and grief," said Bryan police Officer Lesley Malinak, a Police Department spokeswoman.

Mr. Barron, 52, was released Friday evening from the Brazos County Jail after posting $7,000 bail. Neither he nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

Church officials did not comment late Friday on Mr. Barron's current employment status. He has worked at Prestonwood for about 18 months as a minister to married adults, ages 42 to 58.

"We are disturbed and saddened by the reports we have heard and we are praying for the Barron family," said Mike Buster, executive pastor at Prestonwood. "We are fully cooperating with the police in their investigation."

Mr. Barron served from 2000 to 2003 as senior pastor at Northrich Baptist Church in Richardson, and before that was adult education pastor at First Baptist Church of Lewisville for 10 months, according to those churches.

Bryan police said Mr. Barron had been chatting for about two weeks with the officer who he thought was a juvenile. Police declined to talk in detail about the conversations, but they said they were sexually explicit.

On Tuesday, Mr. Barron asked the girl to skip school and meet him, police said.

"Of course, our officers replied that they would," Officer Malinak said. "He had been on a business trip and was coming to see her after he was done with this business trip."

Two days later, he made the three-hour drive to Bryan to meet the girl at a parking lot, chatting by phone with his potential victim on the way, police said. Police said he was arrested without incident.

Inside the car, which Mr. Barron had borrowed from his wife, police found a box of 10 condoms, a Web camera and headset that authorities believe he was going to give the girl, police said.

"It is common for people that are engaged in this type of activity" to give gifts to the minors that "they are grooming," Officer Malinak said.

Bryan police discovered that Mr. Barron was a minister when he was asked during questioning what he did for a living, police said. "This is the first person that is this prominent that we've arrested" since undercover stings began in November 2006. Mr. Barron is the 12th man arrested in the stings.

On Thursday, Bryan officers also searched Mr. Barron's Plano home, where they seized a desktop computer, two laptops, numerous computer disks and memory cards, police said.

Prestonwood church staff also gave police officials access to his computer at the church, authorities said. Police did not seize the computer because church officials told police the church had software on the computer that would not allow a person to go into a chat room, Officer Malinak said.

But she said church officials were going to have the computer checked to make sure "there's no inappropriate material" on it, she said.

Bryan police also are looking into whether Mr. Barron may have engaged in previous sexual contact with minors.

"Going through the computer equipment will be very telling," Officer Malinak said.

She said it would be some time before authorities knew what the computers contained.

Mr. Barron does not appear to have a criminal history.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has in recent years expanded its focus, with attention to abuse by Baptist pastors.

"Baptist officials, we believe, need to compile a thorough, online database of proven, admitted and credibly accused pedophile clergy, so that kids can be protected and parents can be warned," said David Clohessy, SNAP national director.

A work group of the Southern Baptist Convention has been studying the feasibility of such a database and will make a report at the denomination's annual meeting, set for next month in Indianapolis.

Matthew Watkins of the Bryan-College Station Eagle contributed to this report.

teiserer@dallasnews.com; samhodges@dallasnews.com

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.

#1. To: Ferret Mike (#0) (Edited)

What man my age (in his right mind) would want to be involved with a girl that young?

Any child that age that feigns interest in a grandfather has to be screwed up.

You'd think that fact alone would give these middle age crazy, would-be predators a moment of pause.

I mean, would he want to have sex with a profoundly retarded or comatose 13 yr old? Is it all about the flesh regardless if a functioning heart and brain are involved?

I can't picture myself in that absurd scenario.

I cringe as it is when I see some rich old dude with an adult woman his daughter's age on his arm.

He has to be fooling himself.

"SHE'S THERE FOR THE MONEY, NOT YOUR HOT, MONKEY LOVE, GRAMPS!"

(that goes for you too, mick jagger!)

HOUNDDAWG  posted on  2008-05-17   9:17:57 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: HOUNDDAWG (#1)

There is something really fundamentally wrong with the Southern Baptist denomination.

First, they began almost worshipping Bush as their newly-installed fourth member of the Trinity, which I suppose would be renamed the Quadrinity.

I sat through many sermons at the local First Baptist Church calling on us to all but bow before GodBush, the Holy American Flag and the Preemptive War Doctrine for which it stands.

GOP stood for God's Own Party and the preacher left the clear implication that voting for a Democrat was to put one's soul in danger of eternal hellfire.

Finally, I left. God had long ago left that place, I concluded. Why should I keep going out of habit?

As for the particulars of this case, I don't like the entrapment aspect of it, but his making the 200-mile trip to meet the nonexistent 13-year-old IS a criminal act and not merely a chat room fantasy.

As for your blanket condemnation of sex between people of different age groups, I would suppose the Baptists (and especially the FLDS Mormons) would cite you all the countless examples of this in the Old Testament. It is just a biological fact that a man can father children for a much longer span of time than a woman can bear them.

The FLDSers would even contend, as we see in the Eldorado case, that 13-year-olds can "marry," although Baptists and most other "mainstream" churches wouldn't go that far.

Sam Houston  posted on  2008-05-17   10:06:01 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Sam Houston (#2)

Finally, I left. God had long ago left that place, I concluded. Why should I keep going out of habit?

Same here.

Lod  posted on  2008-05-17   11:48:37 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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