The victims, now 32 and 35, only recently came forward to police, and one of them was so attached to Mitten and his family that she initially destroyed evidence and helped him develop a defense involving the other victim.

But on the eve of Mitten’s scheduled trial last year, the woman emailed Chesterfield prosecutor B.J. McGee to talk and later told a detective that Mitten had, in fact, also molested her.

Mitten had been with the church at 233 N. Courthouse Road — which dissolved in September 2012 — from the late 1980s until he was forced to resign in 2000 after allegations surfaced involving another girl. Mitten, in his resignation letter, admitted crossing “ministerial ethics lines and was indiscreet,” the prosecutor told the court.

On Monday, instead of taking his case before a jury, Mitten pleaded no contest under the Alford doctrine, which means he does not admit guilt but believes the prosecution would be able to persuade a judge or jury to find him guilty.

Circuit Judge Frederick G. Rockwell III accepted Mitten’s pleas and convicted him of both counts after declaring there was overwhelming evidence of guilt. Mitten faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced June 26.

In exchange for his pleas, McGee withdrew 13 additional counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor and one count of carnal knowledge of a child 13 to 15 years old.

Defense attorney Craig Cooley cautioned the court that there was more to the story than the prosecution’s “editorialized” account. Cooley advised that he had lined up several witnesses who would have been willing to testify that both victims denied that Mitten had molested them.

But the prosecution described how the victims had become so emotionally attached to Mitten that, for years, they were willing to suppress the abuse to continue receiving the nurturing he provided as a father figure with a family of his own.

McGee said one of the victims was still acting like one of Mitten’s daughters in 2012, even though she continued having a sexual relationship with him into adulthood.

Burdened by her secret, one of the victims broke down to her current pastor Jan. 10, 2012, and revealed everything, McGee said. That led to the pastor meeting with Mitten, who admitted breaching “emotional, pastoral and sexual boundaries” but provided no specifics. Police were contacted Jan. 31, 2012; Mitten was arrested three months later.

McGee described how Mitten earned the victims’ trust by using his keen ability to communicate with the church’s youth and becoming an integral part of their lives. He accompanied them to school functions, helped with their homework and braided their hair. He made them part of his family, and they would spend nights at his home with their mothers’ permission.

But the attention eventually progressed to rubbing and touching, which the girls initially discounted. As they grew older, Mitten began talking to them about sex and sexuality, and that evolved into inappropriate touching and various sex acts in a Wendy’s parking lot and on bike rides into the woods, the prosecutor told the court.

The girls told no one, McGee said, because they did not want to forfeit the emotional attention to which they had become accustomed or sever the bond they developed with Mitten’s family.

McGee said he agreed to the plea deal that resulted in more than a dozen charges being dropped to spare the victims the trauma of testifying about the abuse and having to admit under defense questioning that they initially lied about the circumstances.