MCSO

Jasmine Brown

​Jasmine Brown -- a 29-year-old youth minister at the Family of God Christian Fellowship in Apache Junction -- and the 12-year-old boy he's accused of molesting, have differing accounts of the abuse -- Brown doesn't deny he molested the boy, he just claims it was consensual.

Unfortunately for Brown, even if he's telling the truth, 12-year-old boys can't legally consent to sex with adults -- and now he's charged with several sex-with-a-kid-related crimes..

Aside from being a youth minister, Brown also is a full-time teacher's aide at Phoenix Collegiate Academy, working with special needs children. He previously worked with the Roosevelt School District.According to court records obtained by New Times, Brown and the victim were at a church camp in July, where the two ended up sleeping in the same bed.

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Former priest/sex offender Juan Guillen

​Juan Guillen, who was a priest at the Immaculate Conception Church for over 20 years before heading to prison for attempted child molestation, is a wanted man just days after getting released from prison.

Guillen was released from an Arizona prison on October 6. He checked in with the Yuma County Probation Department the day he was released, and hasn't been heard from since.

He's since been placed on Yuma County's "Most Wanted" list.

Guillen pleaded guilty in 2003 to attempted child molestation, which was quite a bargain considering he initially faced four counts of child molesting and eight of sexual conduct with a minor after admitting to having oral sex with several altar boys starting in 1989.

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www.article.wn.com

Warren Jeffs

​Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was in a Texas courtroom today, where he was sentenced to life in prison today for sexually assaulting two underage followers of his breakaway sect of the Mormon Church.

See former New Times staffer John Dougherty's articles on the the secretive, isolated polygamist Mormon communities that straddle the Arizona-Utah border here.

The FLDS' original headquarters was based in Colorado City -- along the Arizona/Utah border -- but Jeffs moved the Church's headquarters to Texas after he faced criminal charges in Arizona. He was convicted of accessory to rape in Utah in 2007, but the conviction was overturned by the state Supreme Court. In December he was extradited to Texas to face charges there.

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David Nelson

​Strip poker can be a fun party game when played by visually -- and age -- appropriate gamblers. It's a problem, however, when one of those playing is a preacher -- it's an even bigger problem when the only other player is a 14-year-old boy.

The former preacher at a Jehovah's Witness church in Phoenix was arrested last night for allegedly playing strip poker -- and doing a lot of other sick stuff -- with a 14-year-old boy more than 30 years ago.

David Nelson, the former leader of the Madison Park Congregation Church near 16th Street and Earll Drive in Phoenix, was arrested last night at his home for molesting a boy he met through the church in 1980.

We got our hands on the police report -- sick stuff.

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Christopher Furey

​If you read the headline to this post and think you're experiencing a case of deja vu, we assure you, you're not.

Leaders of a church being accused of molesting kids is nothing new, to say the least, and the latest member of the cloth accused of feelin' up kids while leading a congregation happened here in Arizona.

According to the Cottonwood Police Department, a grand jury returned a 20-count indictment alleging that 43-year-old Christopher Furey, the youth minister at the Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Cottonwood, molested several children while working as the youth pastor at the church.


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www.harlemlive.org

​A recent study suggests states deemed highly religious have a higher teen-pregnancy rate than more God-challenged states; as expected, Arizona is ranked in the top five in the religious category.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Drexel University, suggests that certain values found within very religious communities are the cause for the spiked rate of pregnant teeny-boppers.

Joseph Strayhorn, one of the study's primary researchers, tells Live Science that communities adopting a literal interpretation to the Bible often discourage the use of contraceptives and rarely do enough to discourage teens from having sex.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

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