A Texas youth pastor linked to the sexual abuse of at least 14 girls has been released early from prison for good behavior, according to media reports.
Former youth minister Robert Shiflet served just 25 months in federal prison for a 33-month sentence he received in June 2021 as part of a plea deal for sexually abusing two underage girls, reported the Fox station in Dallas.
The abuse took place in the 1990s with victims linked to Denton Bible Church, in a suburb north of Dallas. The victims did not come forward until 2005.
One of the victims was 14 when she met the disgraced holy man at the church in 1996, prosecutors said. A year later, he assaulted the girl while on an eighth-grade camping trip to Buffalo National River in Arkansas.
“He slowly treated me more like a girlfriend,” one victim told the TV station.
“As a young teenager, I knew something didn’t feel right. I knew that I felt uncomfortable. And when he would do different things and touch me in ways that were inappropriate, he would ask me if it was okay. And if I said yes, he would keep doing them. And if I said no, he would ice me out emotionally.”
Shiflet has been a free man since January 11, but his victims claim they were not notified ahead of his release.
Instead, they received an email notification from the Justice Department more than six weeks after he was set free, stating that advance notice was not possible because it was “immediate, and/or unexpected,” the local station reported.
The fallen pastor is now living in Weatherford, Texas — just west of Fort Worth — where he must register as a sex offender for life.
In addition to the guilty pleas, the church where Shiflet worked linked him to at least a dozen other cases of abuse after conducting its own investigation and working with law enforcement.
“You know what frustrates me the most about this story — is the number of times we’ve been told, ‘We did not know what to do,’” the victim added. “I don’t have words for that. I don’t think you need a seminary degree to know what to do. You need to do the right thing. Take care of the victims and report to police and CPS.”
Head pastor Tommy Nelson claimed he learned girls in the church’s care were being abused in 2015, but an investigation by the congregation’s own attorney found that the church stripped Shiflet of his ordination 10 years earlier.
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March 28, 2023 at 02:11AM
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