United States: Texas church deacon convicted of indecency with a child left in his care during Bible study, affirmed
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Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
deacon, small church in Longview, Texas
Organization
unnamed small church, Longview, Texas
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
Allen held the church office of deacon and was specifically charged by the congregation with watching the children, including the 13-year-old victim, in the church kitchen while their families attended Bible studies and prayer meetings — a direct ritual-office custodial authority that placed the victim in his unsupervised care and which he used to commit the offense.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2025-06-30 · direct appeal
Court of Appeals, Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana. The trial court found Clifton Allen, Jr. guilty of indecency with a child by sexual contact and sentenced him to twenty years' imprisonment. The Sixth Court of Appeals held the evidence legally sufficient — including Allen's own admission to a DPS special agent that he intentionally touched the child in a way that aroused him — and AFFIRMED the trial court's judgment of conviction (Allen v. State, No. 06-24-00152-CR).
Documented coercion mechanisms
- ritual-office custodial authority: entrusted by the congregation to watch children in the church kitchen while their families attended Bible study and prayer meetings
Cited record
Sources
- court reporting appellate opinion Allen v. State, No. 06-24-00152-CR (Tex. App.—Texarkana June 30, 2025, mem. op.). CourtListener opinion id 11087819.
Full memorandum opinion: 'Allen was charged with engaging in sexual contact with A.A., a thirteen-year-old child, at a small church in Longview in July 2018. Allen was a deacon at the church, and the contact between Allen and A.A. occurred when Allen was charged with watching A.A. and other children in the church's kitchen area while the children's families attended Bible studies and prayer meetings... Allen admitted touching several child victims, including A.A., during an interview with Officer Rusty Hughes... We affirm the trial court's judgment of conviction.'
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.courtlistener.com/opinion/11087819/clifton-allen-jr-v-the-state-of-texas/ Corpus classification: court-reporting; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion. SHA-256 e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
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