Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Amazon region, Brazil · 2013

Warren Scott Kennell: 58-year federal sentence for abusing Amazon indigenous children while planting a church

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

New Tribes Mission missionary and church planter

Organization

New Tribes Mission (now Ethnos360)

Archive classification

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

Kennell was a New Tribes Mission missionary in the process of establishing a church among an isolated Amazon indigenous community when he produced child-sexual-abuse images of two children from that community. The record is core because his access to the children flowed directly from his role as the outside religious authority introducing Christianity to a newly contacted or recently contacted indigenous group -- a relationship in which the missionary's spiritual and material authority over the community was, by New Tribes Mission's own model of unreached-people-group evangelism, total and unmediated by any competing local institution.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2013-08-19 · federal conviction and sentence

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Kennell was convicted and sentenced to 58 years in federal prison for producing child pornography involving two minor victims, members of an isolated Amazon indigenous community in Brazil where he was establishing a church as a New Tribes Mission missionary, between December 2008 and August 2011.

Documented coercion mechanisms

missionary's role establishing a church among an isolated indigenous community
foreign-national status and outsider technological/material advantage over the community
position as the religious authority introducing Christianity to the tribe

Cited record

Sources

prosecuting authority sentencing report U.S. Attorney's Office, Middle District of Florida, 'Sanford Missionary Sentenced To 58 Years For Production Of Child Pornography' (2013).: The prosecuting authority records Kennell's role as a New Tribes Mission missionary establishing a church among an isolated Amazon indigenous community in Brazil, the production of child-pornography images of two minor tribal members, and the 58-year sentence.
international press sentencing context South China Morning Post, 'US missionary jailed for 58 years for abusing Amazon children in Brazil' (2013).: Reports Kennell's identity as a New Tribes Mission missionary in Brazil and the discovery of over 940 child-pornography images on his devices at a U.S. airport search.
national press sentencing context Indian Country Today, 'Missionary Convicted of Child Pornography Involving Indigenous' children (2013).: Corroborates Kennell's missionary role and the indigenous identity of the two child victims in the Brazilian Amazon.

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://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/sanford-missionary-sentenced-58-years-production-child-pornography Corpus classification: prosecuting-authority; evidentiary role: sentencing-report. SHA-256 73f1af62f2b6c2de199ba9657fbbe6b6b611a1b329896fa1cb5e2a8de69146cb
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1416823/us-missionary-jailed-58-years-abusing-amazon-children-brazil Corpus classification: international-press; evidentiary role: sentencing-context. SHA-256 ed105552630ca8daef53f9f0577442d31234b182f5900f13acbc767a10e627b9
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://ictnews.org/archive/missionary-convicted-of-child-pornography-involving-indigenous/ Corpus classification: national-press; evidentiary role: sentencing-context. SHA-256 d48cb806d0f78f1a3ad5a67dd8af2630841e3cc98db9b37d751014ca7b7948ad
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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