MANSFIELD (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram [Fort Worth, TX]
February 11, 2022
By Kaley Johnson
A man who sexually abused girls who attended the same Mansfield church as him was found guilty of two charges of indecency with a child and sexual contact and sentenced to 4-and-a-half years in prison for each count on Friday.
The sentences are to run consecutively, meaning he will spend a total of nine years in prison.
Benjamin Cole pursued and sexually abused two then-13-year-olds while attending Heritage Baptist Church in Mansfield. Now adults, Marybeth Arnold and Amanda Hodson spoke with the Star-Telegram in 2019 about Cole’s abuse and the lasting impact he caused.
A jury found Cole guilty after about two days of deliberations in Tarrant County’s 432nd District Court. He was sentenced Friday evening.
Between 2002 and 2003, Cole began to pursue both Hodson and Arnold separately when he was 18 and 19 years old. In 2002, Cole groped Hodson in the back of a church van, she said. The next year, 19-year-old Cole started to sexually abuse Arnold when she had sleepovers with his younger sisters.
Hodson and Arnold said the MeToo movement in part inspired them to speak publicly about what happened. However, it was not the first time they tried to tell someone about what Cole was doing — according to the women, church elders at Heritage Baptist Church knew that Cole was “involved” with multiple underage girls.
In 2003, another girl’s mother filed a police report alleging Cole had sexually assaulted her 14-year-old daughter. Cole was arrested but was later no-billed by a Tarrant County grand jury.
“I want the pastors to realize that they are culpable for all the abuse that Ben inflicted on people since they knew that he preyed on children,” Arnold, a nurse living in San Antonio, said in a previous Star-Telegram interview. “… They protected him and they allowed it to continue.”
Two of the pastors, Larry Vincent and Jarrett Downs, were still at the church as of 2019. The third, Steve Garrick, was a pastor at a different church in Georgetown as of 2019. Downs was a Burleson police officer between July 2004 and June 2008.
When Hodson was 15, Cole pursued a relationship with her, she said. Cole was in his mid-20s and in college. Hodson told the Star-Telegram in 2019 that Cole started threatening to kill her sister and her parents. At her house one day, he told her if any man ever touched her, he would kill them, too, and he brandished a gun.
In 2005, Hodson told her dad about Cole’s advances. She and her dad were brought before the three church elders in a closed-door meeting, where she said the elders asked her questions about what she had done to encourage Cole’s actions. No one went to the police.
COLE ABUSES ANOTHER
In 2017, Cole — then in his 30s — was arrested in Tyler after the father of a 16-year-old found inappropriate messages between the teen and Cole on the girl’s phone. Cole pleaded guilty in March 2018 in Smith County to possession of child pornography and online solicitation of a minor and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
In response to questions from the Star-Telegram in 2019, Heritage Baptist Church leaders denied they received any allegations of sexual misconduct concerning Cole and Hodson or Arnold. A statement from the church acknowledged they did receive the allegation in 2003 in regards to the 14-year-old girl, but noted the case was no-billed.
“Because many people have been deeply wounded by these false allegations we believe the following statements will clarify the issues for you,” the church said in a statement to the Star-Telegram in 2019. “In subsequent years we never received another allegation from anyone in the church alleging sexual misconduct on the part of Mr. Ben Cole. Any allegations to the contrary are entirely false.”
When Cole was indicted in 2019, Arnold and Hodson sent an emailed statement to the Star-Telegram saying that coming forward was “one of the hardest things we’ve ever done.”
“But we’re doing this for all the women who have been silenced by abusers and corrupt churches,” the statement said. “We’re doing this for all the girls who could be his future victims. It’s time to speak up and say enough is enough. We’re grateful to the people who believed us and supported us, and to the legal system for pursuing justice.”
Staff Writer James Hartley contributed to this report.