Youth pastor pleads guilty to abusing child on Mississippi church trip
Published 12:41 pm Saturday, April 13, 2019
A Louisiana youth pastor is pleading guilty to sexually abusing a child during a church trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
WLOX-TV reports 37-year-old Jonathan Michael Bailey of New Orleans on Friday pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery of a child younger than 14.
Members of Bailey’s youth group reported that Bailey behaved inappropriately with a 13-year-old church member during a youth retreat to Seashore United Methodist Retreat Center in Biloxi.
Prosecutors say Bailey told the victim to come to his room after others were asleep. Bailey later confessed.
Bailey was sentenced to 23 years in prison without possibility of parole in Mississippi. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender. Bailey has also been convicted of crimes in Louisiana and sentenced to 10 years there.