GREENSBORO (NC)
Baptist News Global [Jacksonville FL]
February 19, 2025
By Mark Wingfield
The former Southern Baptist seminary professor who has admitted to lying to the FBI about documentation of alleged sexual abuse by a student should not be imprisoned for his crime, his attorney wrote in a letter to the judge Feb. 19.
Although marked as “unredacted and to be filed under seal,” the letter was published online by the X site SBCLitigation. It was addressed to federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is presiding over the case.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 5 in New York. The Department of Justice has requested a $2,000 fine and one year of probation without incarceration.
Matt Queen already has suffered the consequences of his actions — which, his attorney says, were unintentional and nearly harmless — so “punishment that includes incarceration is not necessary,” attorney Sam Schmidt says in the letter.
Queen left the staff of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, before the events in his indictment became public. He became pastor of Friendly Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C., but was put on administrative leave when indicted and then forced to resign after he confessed to lying.
The crux of the case is that when a female seminary staff member reported an alleged sexual abuse by a male student against a third party, Queen was present at a meeting where another seminary employee, a male, told the female to make the documentation go away. Queen then altered his contemporaneous documentation of that conversation and lied to the FBI about what happened.
Ironically, the former employee who attempted to bury the allegation of abuse has not been charged with a crime but did leave the seminary’s employ shortly thereafter.
Once charged, Queen claimed he was innocent of the charges and had not lied and had not altered documents. It took him several months to confess to what he had done.
Nevertheless, attorney Sam Schmidt wrote to appeal for mercy from the judge in sentencing. His letter includes statements from 59 family members, friends and former colleagues of Queen’s.
“Matthew Queen has led a life that has caused many of his family, friends, colleagues, former students and parishioners to write to your honor to describe the man they know and ask for mercy and leniency,” the letter states.
“Matthew Queen never intended to interfere or impact the investigation relating to the allegations of sexual abuse that were alleged to have been committed by a student.”
“Though lying to a federal officer during an investigation is a serious offense, the Sentencing Guidelines recognize that it is much less serious than most of the offenses that result in prosecutions in this courthouse,” Schmidt says. “Importantly, Matthew Queen never intended to interfere or impact the investigation relating to the allegations of sexual abuse that were alleged to have been committed by a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Nor did he intend to obstruct the government’s subsequent investigation but acknowledges that his conduct, including his falsehood, was wrong and unlawful.”
In fact, as evidenced by court records, Queen intentionally created a false document he presented to the FBI and intentionally lied about what had transpired.
The attorney’s letter then claims the impact of Queen’s lying “was not substantial” and his conduct “contained no evidence of misconduct on the part of SWBTS or its employees.”
In reality, the episode occurred in the midst of a massive nationwide reckoning over mishandled sexual abuse cases in the Southern Baptist Convention and by most all accounts other seminary employees did commit misconduct.
The letter also says Queen “quickly acknowledged his falsehood, apologized, repented and truthfully testified in the grand jury.”
In fact, the fateful meeting on Southwestern’s campus happened in January 2023 and Queen was interviewed by the FBI in May 2023, when he produced fake documentation of the January meeting. He was interviewed by a grand jury in June 2023, but was not indicted until one year later, in May 2024.
He did not change his plea until five months after his indictment and arrest.
Queen then went from May to October of that year maintaining his innocence. He did not change his plea until five months after his indictment and arrest. And in the meantime, he not only protested his innocence but once indicted refused to resign from his pastorate.
His attorney tells the story this way: “While he has not yet been punished by this court, he has suffered substantially — he needed to resign from his position as lead pastor of his church in North Carolina, and he has been regularly criticized in the religious and secular press with his reputation suffering as a result.”
And, the attorney says, “Most people in his religious community have accepted his repentance and have forgiven his error.”
One of the included statements is from Queen’s wife, Hope Queen, who says her husband experienced emotional distress because seminary President David Dockery told him “not to discuss the investigation with anyone else.”
“As a result, we did not even tell our extended family. Matt has always been an extreme extrovert, and the enforced silence, coupled with intimidation, led to a downward spiral in his mental health which was fueled by the dysfunctional atmosphere at the seminary. … Having been led to believe that he would be in legal trouble if he told anyone about the investigation and assured that the seminary lawyers represented him, Matt sought help from neither a counselor nor an attorney. He had questions about the investigation but did not feel the liberty to ask the seminary’s attorneys out of fear of repercussions at work.”
Related articles:
Matt Queen, we hardly knew ye | Opinion by Benjamin Cole
Matt Queen pleads guilty to making false statement to FBI
Court grants indicted seminary professor three additional weeks for motions
Former seminary professor claims misrepresentation while government says his story keeps ‘evolving’