By Bob Allen
A Texas Baptist pastor told an Alabama judge Sept. 14 that he knew that a worship pastor he hired in April was facing criminal sex charges, but he didn’t know how many.
Steve Knott, pastor of First Baptist Church of Bedford, Texas, said at a hearing in Colbert County Circuit Court that 31-year-old Kyle Adcock was attending the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-affiliated congregation with his parents when Knott became the pastor in late January.
Based on the testimony of the pastor and a police officer, Judge Hal Hughston found sufficient evidence that Adcock’s employment violated a condition of his $500,000 bond that he avoid unsupervised contact with minors. The judge ordered Adcock back to jail, without bond, until this trial scheduled in January.
Adcock was indicted in January on 12 counts of first-degree rape, nine counts of second-degree sodomy and eight counts of second-degree rape. The crimes allegedly occurred over a two-year period while he was serving as youth pastor at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals, Ala.
Adcock bonded out of jail last October and moved to Garland, Texas, where he was supposed to be supervised by his parents.
Asked if he knew Adcock had 29 counts of sexual charges against him when he hired him as worship pastor, according to the Times Daily in Florence, Ala., Knott said: “I knew he had some. I didn’t know how many.”
Knott told the court that Adcock recently resigned his position with the church and that the resignation was voluntary.
Knott said at First Baptist, Bedford, Adcock was involved only with the church’s worship band, but Colbert County District Attorney Bryce Graham noted that Adcock’s email address was listed in the church newsletter, and anyone could have contacted him, including a teenager.
Adcock’s past attracted little attention at First Baptist Church in Bedford until parents reached out to media voicing concern that even if they believed he is innocent, it was unwise for church leaders to put Adcock in a position similar to the one that got him in trouble in the first place.
Amy Smith of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, termed it “terribly irresponsible and reckless to employ a man indicted and awaiting trial for 29 counts of child sex abuse.”
The Alabama prosecutor said Adcock’s employment with the Texas church showed flagrant disrespect for the court-ordered condition of the bond agreement.
“The original complaint came from a church, where he was the youth minister,” Graham told the Times Daily. “As soon as he got out of jail, he went right back into a church. The defendant snubbed his nose at the court order.”
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