FORT WORTH (TX)
Star-Telegram
By BEN TINSLEY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
FORT WORTH - The pastor and principal of a Haltom City Baptist church and school is on trial this week, accused of sexually molesting a boy he mentored after the child's father died several years ago.
Jay Preston Connell, 53, of Landmark Baptist Church and Landmark Christian Academy is charged with four counts of indecency with a child by contact and one count of indecent exposure to a child. Prosecutors say the boy, who last attended Connell's school in April 2004, had been mentored by Connell since age 7 and molested over at least five years. The boy is now 16.
"The child's father was elderly and passed away at some point during their seven-year relationship," prosecutor Steve Jumes said. "That's how the defendant was able to step into the kid's life. The mother trusted him and relied on him to be a father."
Defense attorney Walt Cleveland said that's exactly what his client did: mentor the child. Connell did nothing illegal, Cleveland said.
"He didn't do anything that the child's mother didn't ask him to, and there was no sexual intent involved in anything Dr. Connell did," Cleveland said. "It's our contention the state took something quite innocent and caring toward the child and imposed its own mindset, making it into something lewd and malicious. And that's not right."