Texas Church Hires Music Minister Who's out on Bail for 29 Child Sex Abuse Charges

By Beth Ethier
The Slate
September 10, 2015

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/09/09/charles_kyle_adcock_texas_church_former_youth_minister_facing_29_charges.html

The pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bedford, Texas hired Charles Kyle Adcock as a minister in spite of Adcock's arrest on child sex abuse charges.

A church in Texas hired a youth minister from Alabama while he was out on bail for dozens of sex offenses allegedly committed against a child at his former job, Fox affiliate KDFW reports. Charles Kyle Adcock is currently employed as a music minister for the First Baptist Church of Bedford, Texas, where parents are reportedly upset about the background of the man giving their children music lessons:

Alabama court documents show [Adcock] has been charged with 29 counts of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl between 2010 and 2012, when he was her youth minister.

He was working at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals at the time, a city about two hours northwest of Birmingham.

The pastor at the First Baptist Church of Bedford told a KDFW reporter that the church usually conducts background checks on employees (as David Edwards notes at RawStory, a rudimentary Google search would have turned up multiple stories about Adcock's arrest). First Baptist's pastor also repeatedly stressed that Adcock hasn't yet been convicted on the charges, KDFW reported.

Adcock's trial in Alabama is scheduled to start later this year. When he was released on bail last year, his mother testified that he had "a job waiting for him in Texas," according to RawStory.

At Adcock's former church in Alabama, the allegations against Adcock have put "a stain on the entire organization," Pastor Will Rushing told WAFF-TV. The congregation was trying to move on from Adcock's time as their youth leader without forgetting about the trauma suffered by the victim, Rushing said.