FBI agents arrested two Toledo, Ohio, pastors who are accused of committing sex crimes against children.
WTOL reports that Cordell Jenkins, 46, and Anthony Haynes, 37, were taken into custody at their Toledo homes Friday morning after being accused of knowingly recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person under the age of 18 for sex trafficking.
Affidavits filed in U.S. District Court accused Haynes of sexually exploiting juveniles over the last three years, dating to when one of the juveniles involved was just 14 years old.
The affidavit charges that Haynes, along with a woman, engaged in sex acts on multiple occasions with a teenage girl—including two separate incidents at two different hotels—and then paid the teen to remain silent. Haynes allegedly then introduced the teenager to other adults—including Jenkins—who also paid the girl to have sex.
Jenkins—who is the founder and pastor of Abundant Life Ministries in Toledo—allegedly had sex with the girl at another hotel and also in his office in an area church. Jenkins also allegedly encouraged the girl to introduce him to one of her friends and then engaged in sex acts with both of them.
The Toledo Blade reports that, according to FBI agents, Jenkins paid the girl between $100 and $300 for each encounter, except for the time with a second girl, when she was paid “approximately $120 to $140” for her participation.
“That task force began working on this brought it to this point, and we felt these two needed to be in custody,” Vicki Anderson of the FBI told WTOL. “We obviously obtained those arrest warrants, and doing some other law-enforcement activity today help[ed] those investigations.”
Haynes was renting space from the University Bible Fellowship as the pastor of Greater Life Christian Center but stopped paying rent and stopped using the property in June 2016, the station notes.
According to the Blade, Jenkins is facing charges of sex trafficking of a minor, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum life sentence. Jenkins is also facing charges of sexual exploitation of children, which carries between 15 and 30 years in prison.
Haynes is also being charged with sex trafficking of a minor and obstruction in the investigation of child sex trafficking, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Both men have been booked into the Lucas County Jail.
Read more at WTOL and the Toledo Blade.
