United States: Virginia pastor sentenced for sexually abusing a minor and embezzling church funds
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
pastor of Victory Church, Ruckersville, Virginia
Organization
Victory Church, Ruckersville, Virginia
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
A pastor's control over both a minor congregant and the church's finances within a single small congregation, exercised until the church itself collapsed on his arrest.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2026-01-05 · guilty plea and sentence
Greene County Circuit Court, Virginia. Rodney Locklear, 49, pastor of Victory Church, pleaded guilty in September 2025 to 12 charges including child endangerment, sexual abuse of a minor, and eight counts of embezzlement from the church. Judge David Barredo sentenced him to 10 years in prison on 5 Jan 2026. The church closed following his February 2025 arrest.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- pastoral authority over a minor within his own congregation, combined with financial control over church funds
Cited record
Sources
- press press report WVIR/29News, Jan 2026.
Sentence, charges, plea date.
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.29news.com/2026/01/06/former-greene-county-pastor-sentenced-10-years-sexual-abuse-embezzlement/ Corpus classification: press; evidentiary role: press-report. SHA-256 d66a827ef2d9e065200cdf718e43717fc325130932ea0524533ddd1944c24d39
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts
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- 2021 · Paris, France CIASE/Sauvé Report: est. 216,000 abused by French clergy since 1950
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- 2001 · London, UK Victoria Climbié: murder convictions; possession belief; Laming Inquiry followed
- 2012 · London, UK Kristy Bamu: kindoki 'deliverance' murder convictions (30/25-yr minimums)