Florida Pastor Sentenced to Prison for Child Sex Offense

By Ryan DiPentima
Palm Beach
June 15, 2017

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime--law/new-florida-pastor-sentenced-prison-for-child-sex-offense/9nht2ltjrUXZLmNfzr7b5H/

David Donald Hoppenjan (Escambia County Jail)

A Florida minister who was found guilty of traveling to meet an underage boy for sex received his sentence on Tuesday.

David Donald Hoppenjan, 53, will serve 21 months in state prison and will be designated a sexual offender upon release, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Hoppenjan, who was a pastor at First United Methodist Church of Pace, was arrested in a sting operation conducted by local and state law enforcement officials in September.

He was one of 22 men arrested as a part of Operation Undertow, in which undercover agents posed as teenagers online and set up meetings with them. Hoppenjan went to two locations to meet with who he thought would be a 14-year-old boy, according to the Santa Rosa Press Gazette.

Before working in Pace, he was a youth pastor at a First United Methodist Church in Wetumpka, Ala., the Journal reported.

Read more at the Pensacola News Journal or the