By Bob Allen
A criminal trial scheduled June 25 for a former traveling Southern Baptist evangelist and popular youth speaker charged with video voyeurism has been postponed until July 30, according to a court document obtained recently by Associated Baptist Press.
Sammy Nuckolls, a longtime camp pastor for summer youth camps sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources, now has until July 19 to enter a guilty plea in the Circuit Court of Desoto County, Miss., to 13 counts of spying on women in their most private moments.
Nuckolls, 33, has already pleaded guilty in two other similar cases but so far has avoided prison. If convicted in Mississippi he could face up to five years imprisonment on each count.
Nuckolls was arrested last October after a woman, in in whose home Nuckolls was staying as a guest while preaching in a church revival in Arkansas, reported that she found a video camera hidden in a spy pen set up in her bathroom to film her.
Police in three states have reportedly recovered about 20 videos allegedly made by Nuckolls as evidence, but a source following the case said investigators believe he made hundreds over the past 15 years. Experts say paraphilia, a class of compulsive disorders characterized by long-term recurrent and intense sexual fantasies or urges, usually begins in adolescence. Some with the condition, but not all, turn violent.
Most of the women allegedly victimized by Nuckolls considered him a close family friend and had no reason to distrust him while he was in their home or they in his. While Nuckolls served eight years in various capacities at LifeWay Christian Resources FUGE summer camps, officials with the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing house say there is no evidence that any videos were filmed there.