A North Carolina Baptist minister arrested last week for alleged sexual exploitation of a minor now faces a federal indictment stemming from an ongoing joint investigation by local authorities and the FBI.
The Wilson Times, a daily newspaper serving Wilson County, North Carolina, since 1896, reported Friday that an unsealed federal indictment handed down Wednesday in Texas charges 33-year-old Daniel Franklin Heath with coercion and enticement.
Daniel Franklin Heath, photographed Friday in court by The Wilson Times.
Heath, a master-of-divinity graduate of Campbell University Divinity School, resigned last Tuesday evening as associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Wilson, just as church leaders were becoming aware of his arrest earlier in the day on a state charge of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.
Heath, who served at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-affiliated congregation for 10 years, appeared in court Friday on a warrant accusing him of enticing an unidentified 16-year-old girl to produce child pornography.
Henry Skinner, First Baptist’s deacon chair, told The Wilson Times the church wanted to convey “our deep concern for the victim or victims and their families in this matter.”
“We are keeping them, though unknown at this time, in our thoughts and prayers,” Skinner said.
The indictment out of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Sherman Division alleges that Heath used a cellphone to coerce a minor to “engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of creating a visual depiction of such conduct, knowing that such depiction would be transmitted in interstate and foreign commerce.”
Federal authorities say the activity lasted from December 2017 until a month ago. If convicted on the federal charge, Heath could face 10 years to life in prison.
The Wilson Times said Heath also served as a volunteer coach in the city’s youth baseball program prior to his arrest.
The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News recently published a series of investigative reports documenting widespread allegations of sexual abuse by clergy and volunteers in the Southern Baptist Convention, with 47,000 churches the nation’s second-largest faith group behind Roman Catholics.
The smaller Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, numbering around 1,800 churches, formed in the 1990s in a split from the Southern Baptist Convention over doctrinal differences including women’s equality.
Recently the CBF, in conjunction with Baptist Women in Ministry, produced resources to help equip churches to prevent sexual misconduct by clergy.
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