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

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

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

Organization

No organization assigned

Archive classification

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

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

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

Cited 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.

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.wjtv.com/news/state/former-mississippi-youth-pastor-sentenced-for-sexual-battery/ Corpus classification: press; evidentiary role: press-report.
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.djournal.com/news/crime-law-enforcement/former-youth-pastor-pleads-to-sexual-battery-of-church-member/article_0aeb224e-ea22-11ef-8e8c-e3a8a757a66a.html Corpus classification: press; evidentiary role: press-report. SHA-256 51b681733334caa867bbba6a12aa58894326adc77e6f61cdc5523bd29f59fc27
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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