A Texas pastor has been arrested and charged after police say he gave drugs to a 15-year-old girl he was supposed to be counseling and sexually abused her multiple times.
45-year-old Brian Pounds of Vernon was charged on Wednesday with one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of sexual assault of a child, one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of delivery of methamphetamine to a minor, as reported by Times Record News.
“Mr. Pounds has been a pastor in the Vernon community for over a decade,” District Attorney Staley Heatly confirmed in a press release.
According to the indictment, the offences for which he has been charged happened on July 1. Pounds’ LinkedIn profile lists him as the pastor at Vernon First Assembly of God, yet the church’s website has been scrubbed of any reference to him since his arrest on July 16.
Police were initially alerted as to Pounds’ alleged crimes by the mother of a 15-year-old girl, who tried to find her daughter at a hotel where she encountered the pastor. Pounds said he was there to rent a room for someone in need, and had done so in the name of his church.
However, when the mother found her daughter at a Walmart later in the day, the girl told police she had been smoking methamphetamines with Pounds at the hotel and that he had been engaging in sexual intercourse with him for about a month as he was meant to be counseling her.
The girl, Jane Doe, was admitted to the hospital for complications related to methamphetamines use and said that Pounds choked her during their most recent encounter.
Pounds allegedly groomed Doe under the guise of offering her counseling and support, and began smoking methamphetamines with her when they met at the church.
She also said that their first sexual encounter had been at the church.
The accused denies having any sexual contact with the child, and says he was merely counseling her and her family.
He gave permission to police to search the hotel room where the victim says he last drugged and abused her. They found evidence of methamphetamine use and hairs which led them to believe the girl had been inside.
It is unclear how much the girls’ parents knew of where she was when she was with this man, but let it be a warning all the same that you can never be too careful, and parents ought to very, very wary of anyone who wants to spend time alone with your teenage daughter. Even a professed man of God.
It is sickening how many wolves there are out there that disguise themselves as sheep to prey upon those in sore need of church counseling and godly leadership. The church must do better.
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