A former North Carolina Sunday school teacher was sentenced to 87 years in prison on Monday after he was found guilty of multiple sex crimes with children, according to Fox 8 News.
Jonathan Young, a former Sunday school teacher at Firstborn Baptist Church in Benson, North Carolina, has been convicted on multiple counts of rape and sexual offense with children, according to Fox 8 News. Young’s crimes involve three children with the youngest child being 7 years old. (RELATED: Counselor Arrested Twice For Trying To Have Sex With Child Prostitute Finally Fired By School District)
Young committed the crimes in the church and on the church’s buses between 2004 and 2013, Fox 8 News reported. Young’s sentence can be extended to a maximum of 109 years.
Allegations were first brought to the attention of the church in 2014, but no charges were filed, WRAL News reported. The pastor of Firstborn Baptist Church, Durwood Young, is Young’s great uncle.
A church is seen under storm clouds as hurricane Florence starts to make landfall in Lealand, North Carolina on September 13, 2018. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
Brianna Holland, now 19 years old, was one of the victims and was first assaulted by Young when she was 9 years old, according to WRAL News. Young abused Holland for four years before she reported the incidents.
“It was kissing, rubbing, grinding, things like that in the basement,” Holland told the outlet. “He had made multiple threats. ‘If you tell anyone, I will hurt you. I will hurt your family.'”
Holland’s sister was also one of the girls Young sexually abused, WRAL stated.
“Thankfully this sexual predator will never again be able to harm another child,” Paul Jackson, senior assistant district attorney of Johnston County, told Fox 8 News. “The Johnston County District Attorney’s Office will continue to aggressively pursue and bring to justice those who prey upon the children in our community.”
Firstborn Baptist Church and the district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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