Church Music Teacher Pleads Guilty to Three Felonies
Prosecutors say the man used church as “his hunting ground for his victims.”
A church music teacher and school bus driver in Colorado has pleaded guilty to three felony counts of sexual misconduct with three young victims and may spend more than a decade in jail, according to The Gazette.
Robert Gordon, 58, was arrested in April after a parent found inappropriate text messages from Gordon addressed to their son. Following his arrest, two additional victims came forward.
He met his young victims through his affiliation with First United Pentecostal Church in Security, South of Colorado Springs, where he taught music lessons.
Gordon was arrested in 2012 for abusing another teenage boy who said he and Gordon had a sexual relationship in 2001 when he was around 12 years old. The victim said he met Gordon at a church in Security-Widefield.
Prosecutors say Gordon used the church as “his hunting ground for his victims, for continuing to find additional people that he could not only groom but manipulate victims…over the course of decades.”
Gordon allegedly groomed his victims by offering them vapes, video games, and places they could hang out. He admitted having sex with a minor from the church every other week.
The Colorado church is affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International, which encourages its churches to adopt procedures for dealing with abuse, but does not spell out model procedures, according to a 2019 position paper.
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A 2022 post from Spiritual Abuse Blogs features a list of numerous UPCI abuse reports. UPCI used Facebook to “reiterate” its opposition to abuse and say that it offered training to pastors on the subject at its General Conference in 2021 and its General Board meeting in 2022.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Why does MinistryWatch report on sex crimes? These stories are tough to read and sometimes even tougher to report, but we think they are vital to our mission to bring transparency, accountability, and credibility to the evangelical church. To read more about why and how we report these stories, read “Why MinistryWatch Reports On Sex Crimes.” You can find that story here.
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