DES MOINES – A former youth paster at a Des Moines church has pleaded guilty to three sex crimes.
Court records show that on Tuesday, February 11th, 2014, a Polk County District Court Judge accepted a guilty plea from 27-year-old Ryan McKelvey. He plead guilty to felony C third degree sexual abuse, and two counts of felony D sexual abuse by a clergy. Months ago, he plead not guilty and had his lawyer petition to have charges dismissed. The criminal acts took place last year.
According to KCRG news, a 16-year-old victim told detectives McKelvey “often came on to her aggressively like on July 18 when she said he began kissing her and forcing her to rub him when the two were alone inside his car.” She said she felt “totally confused” but he made her feel “special”.
The pastor at Heritage Assembly Church told police that McKelvey had been dismissed for laziness and “spending too much time with the female juveniles of the church,” according to the police report. According to liveleak.com, the Rev. James Snow told police, however, that he didn’t have any suspicions that McKelvey was behaving inappropriately with the teens.
McKelvey awaits sentencing on March 24, 2014. He is being held in the Polk county jail.
PLEAD GUILTY
Uh, it’s called the sex drive. Don’t act so surprised. BTW, not justifying this, but you all do know 16 years old is the legal age of consent in Iowa don’t you? But, being a “pastor” is considered a person of authority, and so under Iowa Law the relationship is considered illegal.
Personally I think legislators should remove the ambiguity of that confusing age, and raise the legal age of consent to 18. Because if you read the law, you’ll see there are far too many loopholes for prosecutors to exploit some hapless guy if he really tried to get with a 16 year old, as this guy apparently did. One of them is “contributing to the delinquency of a minor”. This isn’t Tennessee. You either get rid of the loopholes and make 16 the age no matter what, or you raise it to 18, or even 21. It’s the ambiguity and confusion of our laws that make life in America an “eggshell” experience.
@Philly-this I agree with you on.