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	Deacon to Stand Trial By John Ford Neosho Daily News March 27, 2007 http://www.neoshodailynews.com/articles/2007/03/27/news/03trial.txt Pineville — A McDonald County church deacon has been bound over for trial. Paul S. Epling, 54, a deacon in the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church near Powell, faces an unclassified felony charge of rape. He is accused of having sex with a 6-year-old girl in the summer of 1977. He will be arraigned at 9 a.m. April 3 in McDonald County Circuit Court with Judge Timothy Perigo presiding. In January, a now-35-year-old woman testified Epling had sex with her while she was staying the night at Grand Valley Farms, the present site of the church. The woman testified Epling came into the room where she was sleeping on a hide-a-bed sofa and awakened her and led her into an unoccupied bedroom belonging to Raymond and Patty Lambert. She said he had her take off her underwear, then kissed and fondled her before having sex with her. "He said I had to do that to give myself to God," the woman replied in response to a question by McDonald County Assistant Prosecutor Dan Bagley. "I kept repeating that I wanted to go back to bed." She said after the incident, she crawled under the covers and cried herself to sleep. As Epling was born in February 1953, and the incident allegedly happened in the summer of 1977, he would have been 24 at the time. Epling was bound over for trial after Newton County Division II Associate Circuit Court Judge Greg Stremel took the testimony under advisement pending judicial review of state statutes. Epling is one of five church leaders facing charges of child sexual abuse. His sister, Patty Lambert, faces a charge of second degree statutory sodomy. Her husband, Raymond - the current pastor of Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church - faces seven felony counts: Four counts of second degree child molestation and three counts of second degree sodomy. The Lamberts have a pre-trial conference slated for June 5. A sister-in-law, Laura Epling, faces a count of second degree statutory sodomy and will go to trial on Oct. 9. Her husband, Tom Epling, a deacon in the church, faced five felony child sexual abuse charges, but these were dismissed because the statute of limitations had run out in the case. Tom Epling faces no other charges. Raymond Lambert's uncle, George Otis Johnston, is the pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church of Granby, an offshoot of the McDonald County congregation. He faces 17 felony counts relating to child sexual abuse in Newton County, and a charge of felony first degree child molestation in McDonald County. He is expected to go to trial May 25 on eight of the Newton County charges.
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