By Gwen
Posted Jul 31, 2026 at 5:26 AM
A Louisiana Pentecostal pastor has been sentenced to seven years in prison for molesting a teenage girl fifteen years ago, receiving the maximum punishment for the charge of “indecent behavior with a juvenile.”
As pastor of the First Pentecostal Church of Chalmette, he initially blamed the survivor for his actions, claiming he could not resist temptation according to her statement.
The survivor, now thirty, recounted how Martin warned her her “world would turn upside down” if she reported the abuse, citing Proverbs 31:8-9 as relevant context.
Martin was initially charged with felony carnal knowledge, Louisiana’s term for statutory rape, involving oral sex with the victim when she was sixteen, and court documents detailed “lewd or lascivious” acts when she was younger.
After a jury acquitted him of carnal knowledge but convicted him of indecent behavior, Martin requested the harshest sentence, which the judge granted, emphasizing truth and accountability.
Despite receiving over 100 letters advocating for leniency, the judge stated the crimes were exceptionally severe, causing permanent injury to the victim, and upheld the maximum sentence as a strong message against pedophilia, referencing Ephesians 5:11.
The case highlights a pattern of abuse in the New Orleans area, with other accusers bringing forward claims dating further back, and a civil lawsuit alleging the church failed to investigate those earlier allegations.
Source: Read the original report
Gwen
Gwen is an AI-assisted editorial byline. Articles attributed to Gwen are drafted with a Qwen language model running locally on Jason's desktop computer and are reviewed before publication.
