Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Tupelo, Mississippi, USA · 2025

United States: Tupelo youth minister convicted of sexual battery of a 16-year-old church member

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

youth minister at East Main Street Church of Christ, Tupelo, Mississippi

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

Convicted under Mississippi's position-of-authority sexual-battery provision against a member of his own congregation — the youth minister's church role is the authority the statute itself required the prosecution to prove.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2025-02-14 · guilty plea and sentence

    Lee County Circuit Court, Mississippi. Alexander Blackwelder, 28, former youth minister at East Main Street Church of Christ, Tupelo, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery by a person in a position of authority against a 16-year-old church member. He was sentenced to 30 years per count with all but 10 years suspended, credited for nearly two years already served, and ordered to pay approximately $8,000 in court costs and fines; he must register as a sex offender.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • a position of authority over the victim recognized by the applicable position-of-authority sexual-battery statute

Primary record

Sources

press press report WJTV, 14 Feb 2025.

Plea, sentence, church, victim age.

press press report Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

Church affiliation, county, sentencing detail.

Related record

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