Former professor of the Baptist Seminar Fort Worth avoids prison after pleading guilty in the federal case

A former employee of the South -West Baptist seminar will not serve in prison pleading guilty to make false statements to the FBI about an investigation on the South Baptist Convention and its entities.

Matt Queen, former teacher and interim prescriber at the Baptist Baptist Theological Seminary in South -Fort’s Vest, was accused in May last year with a registration forgery and a number of false statements to law enforcement. The charges were part of the investigation of the US Department of Justice that involved a case of sexual conduct that subsequently led to a arrest of a student in January 2023.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced the Queen to six months of arrest at home, a year of evidence and a fine of $ 2,000, according to judicial documents. Also, the queen is obliged to participate in a “ambulatory mental health treatment program”.

The Fort Worth seminar has launched a statement After the queen’s conviction, saying that the school “cooperated fully with the investigation of the Department of Justice on the response of the South Baptist Convention” and “remains firm in the commitment to ensure the safety and well -being of all our community.”

“With the process of completely complete criminal justice regarding the accusations against Matt Queen, we hope that the investigation will soon reach its conclusion, allowing all the parties to advance,” the seminar of March 5 states.

The case involving the queen and seminar are part of the largest STEADY Investigation of the manipulation of Southern Baptist Convention of charges of sexual abuse. The queen marks first Southern Baptist to plead guilty and face federal criminal charges related to an investigation of abuse.

The investigation comes from the case of sexual abuse of 2022

A great jury citation was issued at the seminar in approximately October 2022, according to case documents. He asked the school to provide documents related to charges of sexual abuse against any employee or associated with the seminar.

About a month later, in November 2022, the dean of the School of Women Terri Stovall received a report of the accusations of sexual abuse against a then student. Heath Woolman, the former chief of the Seminar’s General Staff, asked Stovall to make the report “to leave” during a meeting in which the Queen was present.

The Fort Worth seminar launched a statement in January 2023 according to which the school became aware of an exceptional mandate for the student Christian Flores.

“The police on the southern seminar campus began working with the Fort Worth police department and the Burleson Police Department to locate and arrest the student,” the statement of the January 2023 seminar states.

Flores was transformed and was arrested by the Burleson Police Department in January 2023, according to a seminar statement. He was also suspended from school, waiting for the outcome of the investigation.

During a meeting in May 2023 between the Queen and the FBI, the queen would “falsely stated” that she did not hear an employee to direct the other to destroy the document. In June 2023, Queen confessed under oath that he heard that Woolman asks Stovall to make the document “leave.”

Regina was put on administrative leave and resigned as an interim challenge after the seminar learned about the Queen’s actions in June 2023, school officials said.

The Queen began to walk to a Baptist Church in North Carolina in March 2024. After being charged in May, that church put him on leave. The Queen gave the subsequent resignation in November, according to a statement from the Friendly Avenue Baptist Church.

Lawyers did not agree to the conviction

Sam Schmidt, the queen’s lawyer, initially asked the judge to condemn Queen to a year of evidence and a fine of $ 2,000, arguing that “the impact of lie was not substantial” for “local criminal investigation on charges of sexual abuse”.

“Although you lie to a federal officer during an investigation is a serious crime, the conviction guidelines recognize that it is much less serious than most of the criminal prosecution in this court,” Schmidt wrote in the letter of February 19.

Matthew Podolsky, an American prosecutor and lawyer, asked Kaplan on February 26 to condemn the Queen in probation and house arrest, arguing that “the trials of the minimizing defendant should be clearly rejected by the court.”

“Finally, the defendant insists that his conduct had no bad effect, but this is untrue: the repeated lies of the defendant dragged the government investigation and the resources distracted better elsewhere,” Podolsky wrote.

With the case of Queen’s now closed, the South -Vest Baptist Theological Seminary said in his statement on March 5 that the school intends to continue praying for the queen and his family “as well as all the others involved in this process”.

Marissa Greene is a report for America Corps, which covers Faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at [email protected].

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This article appeared for the first time on Fort Worth report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.