Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Jackson County, West Virginia, USA · 2019

West Virginia: pastor's conviction for soliciting and grooming a 15-year-old congregant affirmed

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed on May 2, 2023.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

pastor

Organization

No organization assigned

Archive classification

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

Harper was the victim's pastor; the grooming began and continued through his pastoral relationship with the 15-year-old congregant.

Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

Date in cited record · conditional Alford guilty plea and sentencing

Circuit Court of Jackson County, West Virginia. Douglas Edward Harper, a 39-year-old pastor, was indicted on three counts of sexual abuse by a person in a position of trust to a child and three counts of soliciting a minor via computer after grooming a 15-year-old congregant. He entered a conditional Alford guilty plea to one count of solicitation of a minor via computer; the court sentenced him to two to ten years of incarceration, suspended in favor of probation.
2023-05-02 · direct appeal, No. 22-0238

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Affirmed by memorandum decision.

Documented coercion mechanisms

pastoral relationship with a teenage congregant
grooming via text messages, including advising the victim to hide the messages from his parents

Cited record

Sources

official court judgment appellate judgment State v. Harper, No. 22-0238 (W. Va. May 2, 2023) (memorandum decision).: Memorandum decision affirming pastor Douglas Harper's conditional guilty plea and sentence for soliciting a 15-year-old congregant via text message grooming.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

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Source and tier basis: https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2023/05/02/state_of_west_virginia_v._douglas_edward_harper.pdf Corpus classification: official-court-judgment; evidentiary role: appellate-judgment. SHA-256 2a87f19087aa3e7dc586cd6a731e65ff2e6484e340671903e7d39cd3f2ba1b18
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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