Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Union, South Carolina, USA · 2011

United States: youth pastor's conviction for abusing a congregant teenager upheld on appeal

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

2013

Upheld.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

associate and youth pastor

Organization

New Life Baptist Church, Union

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The victim met the defendant through his church, where his youth-pastoral office was the relationship's frame.

Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2011-01-01 · conviction at trial; upheld on appeal

South Carolina court; SC Court of Appeals (State v. Berry). Stephen Douglas Berry, associate and youth pastor at New Life Baptist Church in Union, was convicted at trial of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor over a months-long 2010 relationship with a fifteen-year-old he met through the church, and sentenced to fifteen years. The South Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the conviction against a challenge to expert testimony.

Documented coercion mechanisms

youth-ministry relationship with a fifteen-year-old met through the church

Cited record

Sources

official court judgment appellate judgment State v. Berry, South Carolina Court of Appeals.: The appellate opinion affirming the conviction.
national broadcaster court reporting sentencing report 'Former youth pastor gets 15 years', WBTV (2011).: Local broadcaster's court reporting.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/sc-court-of-appeals/1707924.html Corpus classification: official-court-judgment; evidentiary role: appellate-judgment. SHA-256 f2e9b932db09304c4c1f1d4eddfe54a5345f062d9c0586c39759868991e95c4e
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.wbtv.com/story/21119893/former-youth-pastor-gets-15-years-for-sex-with-teen-girl/ Corpus classification: national-broadcaster-court-reporting; evidentiary role: sentencing-report. SHA-256 716ac184a3f21f175968f6e00e9f534ddc9a076f8f58de647db776871cec5273
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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