Pastor Matthew Queen pleads responsible

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Monday, October 21, 2024

Matthew Queen, a North Carolina pastor and former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary evangelism professor and interim provost, who pleaded not responsible earlier this summer season to one depend of information falsification in reference to a U.S. Division of Justice investigation of the Southern Baptist Conference, has made an about flip and has now pleaded responsible to creating a false assertion.

Queen pleaded responsible as a part of a plea settlement weeks earlier than he was anticipated to go on trial within the U.S. Southern District of New York on Nov. 13, the Tennessean reported. The crime carries a most sentence of as much as 5 years in jail, however the pastor’s lawyer, Sam Schmidt, believes the decide will suggest a sentence of a number of months.

On the time he was charged, Queen was positioned on administrative depart from his job at Pleasant Avenue Baptist Church in Greensboro, pending the completion of the authorized course of. The church now not lists a employees web page.

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The cost towards Queen stems from a November 2022 report of an alleged sexual abuse dedicated by a Texas Baptist Faculty scholar, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary mentioned in a assertion on Could 21. Seminary officers famous that they later helped facilitate the arrest of the scholar who went on to withdraw from the school. 

Earlier than the sexual abuse allegation in November 2022, nonetheless, the Justice Division issued a grand jury subpoena to the seminary in October 2022, which required the seminary to supply all paperwork in its possession associated to allegations of sexual abuse towards anybody employed by or related to the seminary, amongst different issues.

In November 2022, the DOJ famous, a seminary worker recognized as Worker-1, now revealed by the seminary to be Terri Stovall, dean of girls, interim affiliate dean within the Jack D. Terry Faculty of Academic Ministries and professor of academic ministries, obtained a report alleging {that a} present seminary scholar had dedicated sexual abuse. Stovall notified campus police, and no additional motion was taken. The allegation wasn’t reported to the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace.

Stovall reportedly documented the allegation in January 2023 and the seminary’s failed response. On Jan. 26, 2023, she then met with Queen and one other govt employees member of the seminary recognized as Worker-2 by the DOJ and confirmed by the seminary as their former chief of employees, Heath Woolman, who’s now lead pastor of Fruit Cove Baptist Church in St. Johns, Florida. 

“Throughout that assembly, and in QUEEN’s presence, Worker-2 directed Worker-1, in sum and substance, to destroy the doc,” the Justice Division’s assertion contends. 

In Could 2023, the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace and the FBI interviewed Queen, who “falsely acknowledged that he had not heard Worker-2 direct Worker-1 to destroy the doc.”

Three days after his interview with investigators, Queen instructed one other seminary worker, recognized as Worker-3, that he discovered a pocket book in his workplace with contemporaneous notes of the Jan. 26, 2023, assembly. 

“The notes falsely acknowledged that through the January 26, 2023, assembly, Worker-2, and Worker-1 merely mentioned offering the Doc to a special division on the Seminary and omitted the truth that Worker-2 had directed Worker-1 to destroy the Doc. Queen offered the falsified notes to Worker-2 to supply in response to the grand jury subpoena,” the DOJ mentioned.

Authorities say Queen made different false declarations to investigators in regards to the assembly till June 21, 2023, when he “testified underneath oath that he had the truth is heard Worker-2 direct Worker-1 to make the doc ‘go away.'”

Schmidt mentioned Queen was initially charged with obstruction of justice, however he was allowed to plead responsible to a false assertion.

“It was the federal government’s option to first cost him with obstruction of justice,” Schmidt mentioned. “Then it was the federal government’s alternative to permit a plea to a false assertion.”