Pastor in Chalmette, Louisiana, Sentenced to Maximum Seven Years for Indecent Behavior With Minor

Milton Otto Martin III, a pastor at First Pentecostal Church in Chalmette, Louisiana, was convicted of indecent behavior with a juvenile after a three-day trial, according to a 2011 Guardian report. The verdict was split. The report said the conviction carried a potential seven-year prison sentence and mandatory registration as a sex offender, and that Martin’s sentencing hearing was scheduled for January 15. Martin, then 58, had been accused by multiple individuals of sexual misconduct, but only two alleged victims testified at trial.

The charges concerned one specific incident involving a teenage girl. Martin was initially charged with felony carnal knowledge, which alleged that he engaged in oral sex with the girl when she was 16, in 2011. A separate civil lawsuit alleges that Martin brought the girl on four-wheeler rides and sexually abused her during breaks. The lawsuit is a civil allegation and has not been decided in the reports available.

A later Guardian report described the outcome differently in one respect. It said Martin was initially charged with felony carnal knowledge but was ultimately found guilty of indecent behavior by a jury, which defined the offense as any “lewd or lascivious act” on a minor. The earlier report described a split verdict, and the later report does not describe the split. Both reports agree on the conviction for indecent behavior.

The later report said Martin received a seven-year prison sentence, the maximum allowed for the conviction. It said he had molested a teenage girl more than fifteen years earlier. The survivor, now thirty, told the court that Martin had said her “world would turn upside down” if she reported the abuse. She asked the judge to impose the harshest punishment possible. The report does not give a date for the sentencing hearing it describes.

Judge Darren Roy received more than 100 letters supporting Martin. In sentencing, the judge emphasized the severity and recurring nature of the offenses.