Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Hammond, Indiana, USA · 2013

United States: Jack Schaap, megachurch IFB pastor, sentenced federally for abusing a girl he was 'counseling'

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond and superintendent of its schools

Organization

First Baptist Church of Hammond, Hyles-Anderson (IFB network)

Spiritual nexus

The girl was a congregant delivered into her senior pastor's one-on-one spiritual counseling — the office itself created the access and the unrefusability.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2013-03-20 · guilty plea and sentence

    US District Court, Northern District of Indiana. Jack Schaap, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond — one of the largest Independent Fundamental Baptist congregations in the country — pleaded guilty in September 2012 to transporting a sixteen-year-old congregant across state lines for sexual conduct, having taken over her personal 'counseling' after she was flagged to him as vulnerable. In March 2013 he was sentenced to 144 months in federal prison plus five years' supervised release; later sentence-reduction motions were denied.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • one-on-one pastoral 'counseling' of a sixteen-year-old congregant flagged as vulnerable by his own school administrator
  • transport across state lines for the abuse

Primary record

Sources

official prosecutor release sentencing release US Attorney's Office, N.D. Indiana, sentencing release.

The prosecuting authority's own statement of the plea and sentence.

national newspaper court reporting sentencing report 'Schaap sentenced to 12 years', The Times of Northwest Indiana, 2013.

Regional paper of record's court reporting.

Related record

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