A South Georgia pastor who has drawn negative attention for his politics surrendered to authorities Friday on child molestation charges, officials said.
Kenneth Adkins, 56, faces one count of aggravated child molestation and one count of child molestation, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a news release.
His wife, Charlotte “Stormy” Adkins, released a statement Friday, saying her husband is accused of molesting a young man from their church.
“This young man was part of our teen ministry,” Charlotte Adkins wrote. “Ken and I have treated him like family, as has our church. He is a deeply troubled young man, to be sure, but our thoughts and prayers remain with him even now.”
Both charges stem from incidents alleged to have happened in 2010 with the same victim, attorney Kevin Gough said.
The pastor told the Times-Union recently that he has three Greater Church congregations — in Brunswick, Jacksonville and Atlanta. Charlotte Adkins is the acting pastor of the Greater Church and her husband asked to be placed on unpaid leave until the "matters are resolved," she wrote in her statement.
Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson asked the GBI to assist Brunswick police with the investigation earlier this month.
Adkins made news shortly after a massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub when he tweeted that homosexuals got "what they deserve," according to the Times-Union.
The tweet wasn’t a reference to the Pulse nightclub shooting that left 50 people dead and 53 others injured, Adkins said. He said it was aimed at Jacksonville residents who wanted to expand the city’s anti-discrimination laws.
Adkins has since protected his Twitter feed. A now defunct GoFundMe account from April 27 appears in Google search results with the headline “My Firm is under Attack by the LGBT by Kenneth Adkins.”
His wife said she is disappointed by law enforcement and media rushing to judge the pastor.
“We are confident that Kenneth Adkins will be found innocent of all charges, and at that time we expect that the District Attorney and Georgia Bureau of Investigation will be as vocal in publicly clearing his good name at that time as they have been in besmirching his name around town and in the media over the past twenty-four hours,” Charlotte Adkins wrote.
Adkins is being held in the Glynn County jail.
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