Former Children's Pastor Pleads Guilty to Sex Charges

WAFF
March 7, 2014

http://m.waff.com/#!/newsDetail/24915091

A former Colbert County children's pastor charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse and sodomy, pleaded guilty in court Friday morning.

Jeff Eddie pleaded guilty to 16 counts of sodomy, three counts of sexual abuse of a child and one count of child porn.

Eddie served as a children's pastor at Highland Park Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals. Eddie was arrested in early February and charged with more than 30 counts of child porn, sexual abuse of a child, and sodomy.

According to court documents, Eddie confessed to performing sex acts multiple times on children from his church.

Highland Park Baptist Church released this statement following Eddie's plea:

"These last few weeks have been some of the most difficult days in the history of our church and our community. After today's events, however, we hopefully will be able to move forward and begin healing. As we look to the future, we will continue to prioritize assisting the families who have been victimized by the actions of a man who was not what he appeared to be.

We have established the Highland Park Baptist Church Counseling Fund. This fund will serve to offset the counseling costs for these families. Anyone who would like to contribute can do so at any Progress Bank, First Metro, or Bank Independent location.

I want to express my continued appreciation for the hard work and commitment of the Muscle Shoals Police Department, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the District Attorney's Office in seeking justice in this case.

I would like to ask everyone to continue to pray for healing in the lives of these children, their families and our entire community."

Eddie will serve a total of 30 years under his plea. That sentence will be served concurrently.

"My client, his extremely wonderful and caring mother and father, plus his compassionate sisters wish to express their sincere sorrow and condolences to the victims and their families about this horrendous situation. They know that there is nothing they can say to make the situation go away, but their hearts are heavy with sorry," said Eddie's defense attorney, Billy Underwood.