Maplewood Pastor Guilty of Raping 2 Girl Relatives, Jury Decides

By Emily Gurnon
Pioneer Press
July 17, 2014

http://www.twincities.com/crime/ci_26167267/maplewood-pastor-guilty-raping-two-girl-relatives-jury

A Maplewood preacher was convicted Thursday afternoon of two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving girls he had raped and molested for years.

Ramsey County jurors returned their verdicts against Jacoby Kindred Sr. after more than six hours of deliberation over two days.

Kindred, 61, removed his watch, wallet and money clip, and set them on the courtroom table upon hearing the verdicts, county attorney's spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said. Sheriff's deputies took him into custody immediately. He had been out of jail during the trial.

Kindred's family, including his wife, declined to comment after the verdict.

Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 25 in Ramsey County District Court.

Jacoby Kindred (Courtesy of Ramsey County sheriff)

Two girls in his extended family, one 14 and one 15, testified this week that Kindred forced oral sex on them. He also anally raped the younger girl and vaginally raped the older one, they said.

Kindred vehemently denied the charges, saying the girls' stories were orchestrated by their mother, who he said was angry with him.

The allegations came to light after a relative found a letter the younger girl had written to herself and hidden in a dresser drawer. In the letter, she wrote that she felt unloved and worthless, and that Kindred "would ask for sex and stuff." She ended the letter with a picture of a broken heart.

The abuse began when the girls were about 6 and became more severe, they said.

Kindred testified that he was ordained by Sarah Family Ministries of St. Paul and worked out of the Maplewood home he shared with his wife. The abuse occurred there, mostly when she was not at home, and in a Target parking lot in the case of one girl.

Kindred made the girls swear on a Bible that they would not tell anyone about the sexual abuse. He also told the girls that he had a "sex demon" in him and that he needed to get rid of a buildup of sperm in his body or he would die, they testified.

Kindred complained that the older girl lay "like a bump on a log" when he was raping her, the girl testified.

Kindred's attorney, Gary Wolf, pointed out contradictions in the girls' accounts, but prosecutor Shereen Askalani told the jury that those were minor details and that children did not have the same concept of time as adults.

Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522. Follow her at twitter.com/emilygurnon