Texas minister arrested in sex sting resigns
PLANO, Texas (AP) — A minister arrested in an Internet sex sting has resigned his position at a Dallas-area megachurch, its pastor said Saturday.
The Rev. Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, said during services Saturday that the church accepted Joe Barron's resignation, effective immediately.
Barron was charged Friday with online solicitation of a minor. Undercover officers posing as a 13-year-old girl communicated with the 52-year-old minister for about two weeks. The online conversations were sexual in nature, police said.
On May 6, Barron suggested meeting the girl in person. He drove nearly 200 miles on Thursday to meet her in Bryan, where he was arrested. Police said they found a web-cam and condoms in the minister's car.
Barron was released from the Brazos County Jail on Friday night on $7,000 bail. Police were unsure if he had an attorney.
Graham said it was a heartbreaking week in which "you need to know that we are appalled and we are disgraced by this terrible action, an unacceptable action, by a minister on our staff."
The pastor said he was eager to move on.
"We want to put this in the rearview mirror," Graham said. "We will handle anything we need to handle in terms of our responsibilities and obligations, and any ongoing investigation.
Prestonwood Baptist Church is one of the largest churches in the country with 26,000 members and 40 ministers.
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Plano has had issues for a
Plano has had issues for a while now. there was an article in a mid-nineties issue of ESQUIRE that took the covers off. in fact it was reading about Plano that i realized how damaged suburbanites were.
This is another chapter in
This is another chapter in the rot that lies just underneath the American suburban dream that has been chronicled by American fiction writers and filmmakers for at least 55 years. The contents of the relevatory events have, however, gotten much, much darker than the emptiness of materialism, drug abuse, alcoholism, wife and husband swapping, adultery, closeted homosexuality, anti-semitism and racism.
Jack Graham's tale has nothing to do with the angst of sexual repression and denial. I feel sorry for the teenagers that he did not get caught trying to seduce. How many young lives has he ruined or greatly damaged before he was busted? How many children in the church has he molested?