Alleged Assault by Walker Pastor Dates Back to Late 1980s, Police Say, by John Tunison, Grand Rapids Press , August 25, 2011

Alleged Assault by Walker Pastor Dates Back to Late 1980s, Police Say

By John Tunison
Grand Rapids Press
August 25, 2011

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/08/alleged_assault_by_walker_past.html

Tedd Butler in an undated photo from the Gospel Light Baptist Church web site

Police today said they have linked a Walker pastor to an alleged sexual assault against a young boy who attended the Algoma Township church served by the pastor in the late 1980s.

The boy, now 30, was 5 to 8 years old when he was part of a program to bus Grand Rapids youth to church at the former Landmark Baptist Church on 13 Mile Road in Algoma Township.

Tedd Butler, 46, was a youth pastor at Landmark at the time and knew the boy through the busing program, Ottawa County sheriff's Lt. Mark Bennett said.

Butler is now accused in Ottawa and Kent counties of two sexual assaults against young boys that happened decades apart -- the second happening in 2006 involving a boy, 5 to 6 years old, whose family attended Gospel Light Baptist Church in Walker.

Butler has been pastor at Gospel Light since 2003.

Bennett said an investigation against Butler began several months ago after an 11-year-old boy disclosed details to his parents about the alleged 2006 assault.

Detectives have since interviewed several dozen people and ultimately discovered the victim from the 1980s. The man now lives out-of-state, but as a youth lived in Northeast Grand Rapids.

"Staff from the Algoma church would go down to different neighborhoods to hand out pamphlets and things," Bennett said.

Bennett said it was not immediately clear why neither of the two victims came forward earlier, but said such scenarios are not uncommon.

"People tend to suppress these things until they are ready to disclose it," he said. "In some respects this was kept a secret because it was never really talked about by either boy."

Butler turned himself in Wednesday to the Allegan County jail and has been released on a $60,000 bond. He is expected to be arraigned Sept. 14 in Ottawa County on a charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and on Aug. 31 in Kent County on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.