Pastor's Rape Trial Continued

The Lake News
December 4, 2013

http://www.lakenewsonline.com/article/20131203/NEWS/131209697




The trial of a California, Mo. man charged with multiple counts of sexual child abuse in Moniteau County has been continued.

• The trial of a California, Mo. man charged with multiple counts of sexual child abuse in Moniteau County has been continued.
  
  The pre-trial conference for Travis R. Smith, 43, has now been set for May 16, 2014 with the jury trial scheduled to begin Monday, June 2.
  
  Smith is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Stover.
  
  In September 2012, Smith was arrested by the Missouri State Highway Patrol on charges of forcible rape, sexual abuse and two counts of statutory rape in the second degree in alleged incidents that took place in March 1998 and February 1999. Smith was also then charged in Moniteau County Circuit Court with statutory rape in the second degree and statutory sodomy in the second degree related to incidents alleged to have occurred in 2005.
  
  The allegations involve two different victims.
  
  In June 2013, the charge of forcible sodomy for deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion was added to the charges filed against Smith. This incident was alleged to have occurred in October 1999.
  
  The September 2012 charges were filed just a year after Smith was acquitted of child molestation by a Miller County jury.
  
  He had been accused of inappropriately touching a 14-year-old girl during an outing in May 2010 and was arrested by the Morgan County Sheriff's Department in September 2010. While the case was filed in Morgan County, it later moved on a change of venue. The jury deliberated for less than two hours before acquitting Smith.