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	Ex-Jeff Co. Pastor Faces Child-Sex Counts St.Louis Post-Dispatch September 18, 2007 http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/BE8E8D912DAB409B8625735A003AB6C0?OpenDocument Authorities in California have charged a Baptist minister who once served in Jefferson County with 107 felony counts of sexually molesting two girls under the age of 14. The Fresno (Calif.) Bee identifies the minister as the Rev. John Bonine, 43, known as "Pastor Jeb." Before Bonine moved to Fresno in recent years to take over the Sierra Heights Baptist Church, he was the pastor of Sandy Baptist Church in Hillsboro. Before that, he was pastor of McCroskie Creek Baptist Church in Carrollton, in west-central Missouri. The Fresno paper says police arrested Bonine on Sept. 11. Last Thursday, he pleaded innocent to the 107 charges. He is being held in lieu of $5.5 million bond, the paper says. His next hearing is set for Sept. 27. Police told the Fresno paper that the girls were now in their early teens. The police say they acted after getting a complaint from the Fresno County Child Protective Services. In 1999, Bonine figured in a legal flap over the right of the Ku Klux Klan's effort to join the Missouri trash-pickup effort known as Adopt-A-Highway. The Klan won the right to maintain a stretch of Sandy Church Road past Bonine's church. Bonine said at the time that he and his wife, Carla, had nine children -- seven of them adopted, and two of them black. But he said he doubted that the black children had played a part in the Klan's selection of the road. "I have African-American children, I'm a white parent, and I'm the pastor," Bonine said at the time. "I'm uncomfortable with that, but I guess they have a right to their opinion. I wish they were somewhere else." In Fresno, an official of the church there called the sex charges "difficult and painful" for the church and for Bonine's family, the Fresno paper reports. The official is Mansel Trimble, youth pastor. The paper quotes Trimbe as saying, "We are looking for any way that we can be supportive to our pastor's family. We also recognize that the congregation is a victim. Further, we understand that the view of the community toward Christ and our church suffers. Our compassion also extends to Jeb Bonine as he faces the consequences of these charges."
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