Ex-First Baptist youth minister hit with 13-count indictment alleging sex crimes with church teen

By Ken Daley
Times-Picayune
March 23, 2015

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/03/ex-first_baptist_youth_ministe.html

Former First Baptist New Orleans youth minister Jonathan Bailey, 33, was named in a 13-count grand jury indictment alleging improper sexual conduct with and kidnapping of a juvenile girl from the church between July 1, 2014, and Feb. 8, 2015.

Jonathan Bailey, the former youth minister fired last month from First Baptist New Orleans church, has been arrested a third time after the Orleans Parish grand jury handed up a massive 13-count indictment alleging a pattern of predatory sexual conduct with an underage congregant.

The alleged victim in the indictment is the same 14-year-old girl questioned by New Orleans police six weeks ago, after authorities said video surveillance cameras captured her and Bailey slipping into a darkened closet together during a Feb. 8 function at the large Lakeview church. Bailey was arrested Feb. 23, accused of indecent behavior with a juvenile, then was re-arrested March 4 and booked with sexual battery, after investigators said the girl told of more serious sexual conduct with the married church staffer in a second interview with police.

Bailey twice posted bonds of $35,000 to be free after those arrests. But he was booked into Orleans Parish Prison again Monday (March 23) with a new bond of $6.5 million set by the grand jury bill -- $500,000 on each of the 13 counts.

Bailey's attorney, Townsend Myers, said Monday night he was aware of the new charges but declined comment on the case or his client.

The indictment, issued March 19, charges Bailey with 13 sexual crimes against the girl, including four alleged to have taken place when she was only 13. The indictment charges Bailey thusly:

• Count 1: Molestation of a juvenile, between July 1, 2014-Feb. 8, 2015
• Count 2: Indecent behavior with a juvenile on Oct. 4, 2014
• Count 3: Indecent behavior with a juvenile on Dec. 12, 2014
• Count 4: Indecent behavior with a juvenile on Jan. 2-3, 2014
• Counts 5-8: Four separate counts of oral sexual battery on Feb. 4, 2015
• Count 9: Sexual battery on Feb. 4, 2015
• Count 10: Indecent behavior with a juvenile on Feb. 4, 2015
• Count 11: Second-degree kidnapping on Feb. 4, 2015
• Count 12: Indecent behavior with a juvenile on Feb. 8, 2015
• Count 13: Obstruction of justice, between Oct. 1, 2014-Feb. 8, 2015

It was the Feb. 8 incident involving the church closet that first brought the illicit relationship to the attention of church officials the next morning, First Baptist senior pastor David Crosby said last month. Bailey was fired and escorted off church property on Feb. 9, Crosby said, adding that the scandal had left him and his church "devastated."

After the girl's family and church officials contacted Detective Corey Lymous of the NOPD's Special Victims Section, Bailey initially was arrested Feb. 23 on one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile. According to a police report, during a Feb. 10 meeting at the Children's Advocacy Center, the girl told her interviewer that she and Bailey were "in a relationship" and that he "loved her and she loved him."

Bailey was re-arrested March 4, booked on the more serious charge of sexual battery, after the girl told her parents and police she had not given complete information over the nature of her tryst with the youth minister.

The March arrest warrant said that a second Louisiana church, which was not identified, had contacted Lymous to report that it also fired Bailey as youth minister about 10 years ago over similar allegations involving an underage congregant. It was unclear whether criminal charges ever resulted from that case, however. Crosby said Bailey had passed a criminal background check with "no red flags on him."

An arraignment date for Bailey has not been set.