John Thomas Martin
John Thomas Martin, former pastor of the adamantly anti-LGBTQ Lighthouse Baptist Church in Florence, Ala., has been sentenced to 10 years in prison per charge after admitting he molested young boys and pleading guilty last month to three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, according to WHNT News 19 in Huntsville, Ala.
Martin first confessed to “having affairs” with young boys during a sermon from the church pulpit.
Lauderdale County Assistant District Attorney Coty Hand said, “Those sentences were split to serve two years and ran consecutively for a total of 6 years to serve in prison. He will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.”
Members of the church immediately contacted the family justice center One Place of the Shoals following Martin’s confession from the pulpit in 2019, and less than a week later he was arrested and taken to the Lauderdale County Detention Center and placed on a $60,000 bond. Hand said Martin admitted to four counts of sexual abuse of a child, all involving a victim under 16 years old.
WHNT also reports that Martin was under investigation for similar allegations in Murfreesboro, Tenn., where he served as a youth pastor at Bellwood Baptist Church in 2004.
— Tammye Nash
