Time May Jeopardize Sex Charges
By Ruth Ingram
A Hinds County judge will rule on whether too much time has passed for former Clinton High choir director and music minister John Langworthy to face felony gratification of lust charges. Langworthy was music minister at Morrison Heights Baptist Church before his arrest in September 2011. An eight-count indictment charges him with sexually molesting five boys ages 10-13 between April 1980 and December 1984, with the alleged sexual abuse occurring at the boys’ Jackson homes, Langworthy’s sister’s home in Jackson, or in Langworthy’s dorm room at Mississippi College. Clinton police charged him with two counts of gratification of lust; Jackson police charged him with six. Langworthy pleaded innocent before Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bill Gowan, who will rule on a motion filed Sept. 21 by Langworthy’s attorney, Jeffrey Rimes. A motion to dismiss the indictment contends the statute of limitations has expired that would allow Hinds County to file the charges, an issue that came up not long after Langworthy was charged. Rimes said in his motion that the statute of limitations potentially affecting Langworthy “expired Dec. 31, 1986, nearly three years before the state’s statute of limitations was amended in 1989 to extend for a period of seven years.” “We stand by the motion that we filed,” Rimes said Monday. “Anything further would be inappropriate for us to state at this time as the matter is pending before the court.” The Hinds County District Attorney’s office has not yet filed a response to the motion. After it does, a hearing will be set for both sides to present arguments. Today, there is no statute of limitations on sex crimes in Mississippi. But during the period in which Langworthy allegedly committed the abuse in Mississippi, there was, said Assistant District Attorney Jamie McBride. However, McBride said, “if there’s a statute of limitations and it’s expanded before it expired on him then the new statute of limitations would apply. That’s been our position all along. It said nothing would bar prosecution if (a defendant) left the state or the jurisdiction. He did.” Langworthy moved from Mississippi to Texas, where he worked more than two decades ago with children as a music minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. Langworthy admitted to the Morrison Heights congregation, during an August 2011 church service, that he had committed past indiscretions with younger males in Mississippi and in Texas. He told the congregation that he moved to Mississippi because of the indiscretions at Prestonwood Baptist Church. Prosecutors have said Langworthy was heavily involved with youth choirs at First Baptist Church of Jackson and Daniel Memorial Baptist Church in Jackson during the early 1980s. Langworthy resigned as music minister at Morrison Heights in May 2011. He did not return for the 2011-12 school year to his job as director of Clinton High’s Arrow Singers. He remains free on a total $700,000 bond. Langworthy’s trial is set for Nov. 26, with a final date to enter a plea before trial set for Nov. 9. His trial has been continued twice, from April 4 to July 30, and then from July 30 to Nov. 26. Court filings say the delays are due to “ongoing plea negotiations” between Langworthy’s attorneys and the district attorney’s office, and “research of legal issues surrounding matter.” Whether Langworthy will be allowed to plead to lesser charges is a decision to be made by Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith, McBride said. “For any plea bargain, we would have to talk to the victims,” McBride said “Any time we have a case where victims are involved, Robert wants their voice heard.”
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