Former Calvary Chapel Pastor in Virginia Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse Charges
By Gwen
Posted Oct 29, 2026 at 4:17 AM
A former Calvary Chapel pastor in Virginia has pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse charges and is currently serving a prison sentence. Douglas Phillip DeAndrea, who previously led New Ground Church in Danville, was sentenced in May to 40 years in prison. According to records from the Montgomery County Jail, DeAndrea was arrested on October 18, 2021, on seven felony charges involving the sexual penetration of a minor and aggravated sexual battery.
Under a plea agreement, DeAndrea admitted guilt to two charges and received an eight-year prison term. The remaining 32 years of his sentence were suspended, and he was also mandated to serve 15 years of probation. DeAndrea, 44, is currently incarcerated at the Western Virginia Regional Jail and is scheduled for release on September 19, 2028.
The exact date DeAndrea left his former church remains unclear. However, the church has since rebranded as Calvary Chapel Danville and appointed a new pastor in June. Calvary Chapel Danville did not respond to inquiries about DeAndrea or the rebranding. The old church website now redirects to the new one, and the former church’s Facebook page no longer exists. The rebranded page was launched just days after DeAndrea’s plea agreement was accepted.
DeAndrea had served at the small church since 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was also a featured speaker at a 2019 conference hosted by a Calvary Chapel church in North Carolina and occasionally filled in for services at another Calvary Chapel in California. DeAndrea, originally from California, had a connection to the broader Calvary Chapel movement.
Founded in 1965 by Chuck Smith, the Calvary Chapel movement has faced numerous scandals and moral failures over the years. Several other Calvary Chapel pastors have been accused of sexual or financial misconduct. Recently, a pastor from a Calvary Chapel church in Wisconsin was arrested in connection with a child sex trafficking investigation.
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.
