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Behind The Christian Mask: The Dennis Myers Case · The Occult Rejects

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: You see, something's going to happen. What's going to happen?
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: What I tonight? I want to tell you a story
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  Speaker 1: about a man whose name could fit so easily into
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  Speaker 1: the kind of town where people stop expecting anything unusual
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to the public. Guy Dennis W. Myers looked like he
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  Speaker 1: belonged to the ordinary life of the church. He fit
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  Speaker 1: into the printed bulletin, the calendar hanging on the wall,
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  Speaker 1: the fellowship rooms where young people gathered, the rhythms of
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  Speaker 1: ministry that families come to know by heart. Later, the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Federal Record would describe him as a former youth director
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  Speaker 1: at Christ United Methodist Church in Independence, Missouri, and at
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  Speaker 1: First United Methodist Church in Springdale, Arkansas. And you know
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  Speaker 1: how that happens in church life. After a while, people
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  Speaker 1: do not just know a person by name, They know
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  Speaker 1: them by roll. A position becomes a reputation, a title
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  Speaker 1: becomes an introduction. Nobody even has to say anymore. The
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  Speaker 1: weeks move along in familiar patterns, meetings and announcements, Bible
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  Speaker 1: studies and youth gatherings, church trips and overnight events, and
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  Speaker 1: that easy comfort of saying why we have seen him
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  Speaker 1: around for years? In time, Myers left church employment and
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  Speaker 1: started a dj business. The Department of Justice would later
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  Speaker 1: place that change somewhere around nineteen ninety three to nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety four, and years after that he was living in
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  Speaker 1: Blue Springs, Missouri, another suburb in the orbit of Kansas City,
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  Speaker 1: another place where a life can look plain and ordinary
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  Speaker 1: from the outside. And that is how the story appears
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  Speaker 1: at first glance. That is how it looks before anybody
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  Speaker 1: has opened a court file. That is how it's zounds,
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  Speaker 1: before the record is read, before the facts come into
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  Speaker 1: the light. But then in September twenty eleven, the public
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  Speaker 1: story stopped being only about where he had worked and
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  Speaker 1: who he had once appeared to be. In September twenty eleven,
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  Speaker 1: following complaints by two adolescents about inappropriate sexual activity, law
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  Speaker 1: enforcement officers searched Meyer's home in Blue Springs, His computer
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  Speaker 1: was seized, and the story moved from community memory into
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  Speaker 1: criminal investigation. Forensic examiners found a video of child pornography
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  Speaker 1: that had been downloaded from the Internet and viewed on
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  Speaker 1: that computer. On December twelfth, twenty twelve, a federal grand
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  Speaker 1: jury in Kansas City returned a three count indictment against
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  Speaker 1: marrs then described as fifty two years old and living
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  Speaker 1: in Blue Springs. That incident alleged he accessed the Internet
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  Speaker 1: in order to view the child pornography between April first
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  Speaker 1: and September sixteenth, twenty and eleven, charged one count of
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  Speaker 1: receiving a video of child pornography over the Internet and
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  Speaker 1: one count of possessing child pornography. Contemporaneous local reporting sharpened
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  Speaker 1: that timeline even further, stating investigators alleged he knowingly received
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  Speaker 1: a video file on April thirteenth, twenty eleven, and that
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  Speaker 1: on September fifteenth, twenty eleven, he was found in possession
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  Speaker 1: of at least one item of child pornography. The prosecutor
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  Speaker 1: identified in the federal releases was Assistant US Attorney Catherine Fincham,
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  Speaker 1: and the investigating agency named in the DOJ materials was
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  Speaker 1: the Blue Springs Police Department. At that point, the case
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  Speaker 1: was already serious, but it was still not the full case.
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  Speaker 1: On February twentieth, twenty thirteen, the U. S Attorney's Office
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  Speaker 1: for the Western District of Missouri announced a five count
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  Speaker 1: superseding indictment. Myers was again described at fifty two years
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  Speaker 1: old in living in Blue Springs. The superseding indictment replaced
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  Speaker 1: the December twenty twelve indictment and kept its three original counts,
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  Speaker 1: but it also added two additional counts, transporting a minor
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  Speaker 1: across state lines for illegal sexual activity. According to that
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  Speaker 1: DOJ announcement, the two new transportation counts alleged that, on
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  Speaker 1: separate occasions between November nineteen ninety three and November nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety five, Myers transported a child victim identified as Jane
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  Speaker 1: Doe number one across state lines to engage in sexual
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  Speaker 1: activity for which he could be charged under the Missouri law.
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  Speaker 1: The superseding indictment repeated the original allegations that he accessed
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  Speaker 1: the Internet in order to view child pornography between April
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  Speaker 1: first and September sixteenth, twenty eleven, and that he was
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  Speaker 1: charged with receipt and possession. In other words, what had
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  Speaker 1: first looked like a case rooted only in a twenty
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  Speaker 1: eleven computer seizure widened into something much older. That older
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  Speaker 1: thread centered on Jane Doe number one. According to the DOJ,
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  Speaker 1: Myers met her while he was a youth director at
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  Speaker 1: First United Methodist Church in Springdale, Arkansas. The sentencing record
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  Speaker 1: states that sexual activity began when she was fourteen to
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  Speaker 1: fifteen years old and in the eighth grade. Both the
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  Speaker 1: plea and sentencing releases report that he had left church
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  Speaker 1: employment and started a DJA business and approximately nineteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: three to nineteen ninety four when Jay Doe number one
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  Speaker 1: was fifteen years old, and that from November nineteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: four to November nineteen ninety five, when she was approximately sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: he transported her from Arkansas to the Kansas City area,
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  Speaker 1: where they had sexual intercourse. The sentencing release also included
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  Speaker 1: a specific allegation about the end of the relationship. It
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  Speaker 1: stated that court documents reported Myers provided Jane Doe number
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  Speaker 1: one an excessive amount of wine and raped her as
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  Speaker 1: she cried and tried to fight him off. There is
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  Speaker 1: another detail in the sentencing record that deepens the church
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  Speaker 1: dimension of this case. According to federal prosecutors, in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety four, Victim and Independence wrote to the church in
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  Speaker 1: Arkansas to disclose Meyer's activities while he had been youth director.
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  Speaker 1: And Independence the DOJA stated that Myers, working at the
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  Speaker 1: Arkansas church in that time, intercepted the mail, wrote to
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  Speaker 1: the victim and tried to persuade her not to disclose,
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  Speaker 1: telling her that it would bring scandal to the church.
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  Speaker 1: That detail matters because it suggests not only abuse, but
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  Speaker 1: active pressure against disclosure inside the same institutional world that
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  Speaker 1: had helped establish his credibility in the first place. That
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  Speaker 1: is also what gives the opening of the story its weight.
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  Speaker 1: Once the latest sentencing facts are known, the church world
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  Speaker 1: at the beginning no longer stays ordinary. The title of
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  Speaker 1: youth director is no longer just a description of employment.
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  Speaker 1: It becomes part of the mechanism by which trust, access
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  Speaker 1: and concealment were made possible. The public record later tied
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  Speaker 1: additional victims to overnight church lock in and a church
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  Speaker 1: camping trip. Those were not incidental settings. They were part
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  Speaker 1: of the environment in which Myers had already been normalized
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  Speaker 1: and trusted. On May one, twenty thirteen, the DOJ announced
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  Speaker 1: that Myers, now described as fifty three years old, pleaded
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  Speaker 1: guilty in federal court that day before US magistrate judged
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  Speaker 1: John T. Morgamer to transporting a minor across state lines
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  Speaker 1: for legal sexual activity and to receiving child pornography over
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  Speaker 1: the internet. That plea announcement also embedded a second track
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  Speaker 1: of accountability. Under the terms of the federal plea agreement,
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  Speaker 1: Myers was required to plead guilty in the Circuit Court
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  Speaker 1: of Jackson County, Missouri, to first degree statutory sodomy and
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  Speaker 1: attempted enticement of a child. The Jackson County Prosecutor's office,
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  Speaker 1: the plea release said, would recommend ten year sentences on
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  Speaker 1: each of the two state counts to run concurrently with
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  Speaker 1: each other and with federal sentence. The same DOJ release
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  Speaker 1: stated the federal sentencing exposure a mandatory minimum sentence of
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  Speaker 1: five years in federal prison without role, up to thirty
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  Speaker 1: years in federal prison with parole, plus a fine up
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  Speaker 1: to five hundred thousand dollars at sentencing. The DOJ said
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  Speaker 1: the district court treated Myers as a serial abuser based
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  Speaker 1: on a pattern involving six additional miners beyond Jane do
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  Speaker 1: number one. According to the sentencing release, that patron included
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  Speaker 1: the Jackson County case where he digitally penetrated one twelve
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  Speaker 1: year old girl and fondled another twelve year old girl,
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  Speaker 1: both occurring in his home. The sentencing release then listed
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  Speaker 1: other instances of sexual abuse or exploitation described in court
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  Speaker 1: documents including the fondling of a thirteen year old victim
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  Speaker 1: on an overnight church lock in, the fondling of a
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  Speaker 1: sixteen to seventeen year old victim on a church camping trip,
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  Speaker 1: the fondling of a fifteen to six year old victim
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  Speaker 1: at his apartment, and producing in his Blue Springs home
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  Speaker 1: a pornographic image of a pre pubescent girl identified in
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  Speaker 1: the release as a seventh victim. The same sentencing release
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  Speaker 1: also noted that the government offered evidence of other inappropriate
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  Speaker 1: and suspicious, although not criminal, interactions between Myers and his
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  Speaker 1: neighbor's girls. This is the point where the case stops
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  Speaker 1: reading like a prosecution built around one victim and one
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  Speaker 1: computer seizure. It becomes something broader, a pattern spread across years,
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  Speaker 1: settings and victims. On May sixteenth, twenty fourteen, US Chief
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  Speaker 1: District Judge Greg Kay's sentenced Myers to thirty years in
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  Speaker 1: federal prison without parole, which the DJ described as the
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  Speaker 1: statutory maximum sentence that matters. Because the plea release had
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  Speaker 1: already laid out the sentencing range clearly five years at
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  Speaker 1: the floor thirty years at the ceiling, the court imposed
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  Speaker 1: the ceiling. The DLJ framed the case as part of
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  Speaker 1: Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and six. DOJ materials also state that Project Safe
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  Speaker 1: Childhood was expanded in twenty eleven to include all federal
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  Speaker 1: child sexual exploitation offenses, not only Internet related ones. Meyers
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  Speaker 1: appealed on December twenty second, twenty fourteen. The Appellate Court
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  Speaker 1: concluded that sentences were not unreasonable. It noted that the
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  Speaker 1: district court considered extensive evidence and arguments and explicitly, carefully
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  Speaker 1: and at length explained its reasons for varying upward to
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  Speaker 1: the statutory maximum. The Eighth Circuit granted council leave to
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  Speaker 1: withdraw and denied Mar's motion for appointment of new council. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this is what people have to understand. The cross does
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  Speaker 1: not make a monster holy. A church title does not
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  Speaker 1: make a predator safe. A public profession of faith does
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  Speaker 1: not make a corrupt man clean. Somebody can call themselves
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  Speaker 1: a Christian, stand in a sanctuary, work around children, talk
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  Speaker 1: about God, and still be sick, still be depraved, still
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  Speaker 1: be hiding rot underneath religious language and a respectable face.
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  Speaker 1: Because some of the people do not stand behind the
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  Speaker 1: cross in reverence they hide behind it. They use it
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  Speaker 1: like cover. They use the trust it creates to use
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  Speaker 1: the hesitation people feel when it comes time to question
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  Speaker 1: somebody who sounds righteous, looks respectable, and belongs to the
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  Speaker 1: right institution. That is how the disguise works, not by
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  Speaker 1: looking demonic, by looking familiar. So no, this is not
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  Speaker 1: an attack on every Christian. It is an attack on
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  Speaker 1: the fantasy that Christianity by itself is guaranteed of morale safety.
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  Speaker 1: It is not. The cross on the wall means nothing
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  Speaker 1: if the man standing under it is rotten. The title
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  Speaker 1: means nothing if the purse holding it is corrupt. Belief
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  Speaker 1: claimed out loud is worthless when the life behind it
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  Speaker 1: is poisoned. And that is why stories like this matter,
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  Speaker 1: because they remind people that evil can sing hymns, evil
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  Speaker 1: can quote scripture, Evil can shake your hand in a
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  Speaker 1: fellowship hole and ask your family how is everybody doing.
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  Speaker 1: Evil can hide behind the cross until the drags it
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  Speaker 1: out into the light. And that is what happened here,
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  Speaker 1: and that is the story until the next one. Everybody
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  Speaker 1: be well later,