The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Last February, I reported the story of Joshua Clemons, youth pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Parker, Colorado, and his alleged sexual assault of a church teenager. In July, Clemons pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child. On Friday, Clemons was sentenced to four years in prison for his crime. After his release from prison, Clemons will have to serve ten years of intensive supervised probation.
Clemons also faces an October 19, 2018 sentencing in another case after he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault—strangulation and attempted sexual assault of a child.
Clemons pleaded guilty in July to one count of sexual exploitation of a child – video/20+ items and one count of attempted sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust – victim age 15-18 in the Douglas County case. Six other counts were dismissed in exchanged for the guilty plea.
Clemons, who worked as a pastor at the Parker church from 2006 through September 2015, had been accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl who had long been in his program.
The relationship carried on as the girl went to college at Colorado State University before ending toward the end of 2016, when the alleged victim said Clemons began to show up at her new church and she threatened to get a restraining order, according to police documents.
Clemons also pleaded guilty in late July to second-degree assault—strangulation and attempted sexual assault of a child in the Denver case. He is scheduled to be sentenced for that case on Oct. 19. The sentence is expected to run consecutively to his sentence from the Douglas County case, a spokesperson for the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office said.
He tried to strangle a child too? What, the child tried to fight back I guess, and he thought that was an appropriate response?