Ex-youth minister re-arrested in First Baptist case; 2nd church reports firing him over juvenile affair allegation

LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Ken Daley, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on March 04, 2015

The former youth minister who last month was fired from Lakeview’s First Baptist New Orleans church and arrested on accusations of indecent behavior with a juvenile was rebooked Wednesday (March 4) on a more serious charge of sexual battery involving the same underage girl.

Jonathan Bailey’s new arrest warrant said a second church has contacted New Orleans police to say it fired Bailey as youth minister about 10 years ago, because of similar allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a juvenile congregant. Court documents did not name the second church or say whether it’s located in New Orleans.

Orleans Parish magistrate commissioner Robert Blackburn on Wednesday set Bailey’s new bond at $35,000. At a court appearance, Bailey’s attorney, Townsend Myers, told the commissioner, “While this is a rebooking on a new charge, it’s a new spin on the alleged conduct he already has been arrested for.”

Bailey, 33, had been free on bond after being booked Feb. 23 with one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile. That arrest came after First Baptist New Orleans officials and the parents of a 14-year-old girl notified NOPD Special Victims Section Detective Corey Lymous of alleged inappropriate behavior between the youth minister and the student inside a church closet, and during an earlier out-of-state retreat in Mississippi.

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