Aker scheduled for competency hearing

By Christy Hoots
Ledger-Independent
January 12, 2016

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Aker

VANCEBURG | A former Lewis County preacher, currently facing sexual abuse charges, has been scheduled for a competency hearing.

Duncan Aker, of Greensburg, Ind. and formerly, Vanceburg, will appear at the hearing on Feb. 3, at 10 a.m. in order for the court to decide if he is competent to stand trial for his charges.

A pretrial hearing has also been scheduled for March 4.

Aker was arrested in May 2015, and charged with five counts of sexual abuse and four counts of sodomy after a Lewis County grand jury handed down an indictment against him in April 2015.

According to the May indictment, Aker allegedly engaged in sexual intercourse and sexual contact through forcible compulsion with a male under the age of 12 between October 2007 and March 2010.

The indictment also states that Aker allegedly committed some of the offenses in the church where he was minister.

In May, a representative with the Greensburg Police Department said Aker was arrested by their office on a warrant from Vanceburg and was extradited to Kentucky.

"The investigation into the incidents took about three to four months," Kentucky State Police Master Trooper Joe Veeneman said in May. "Then we had to wait on the extradition from Indiana."

According to Veeneman, Aker is the former pastor of the Vanceburg Christian Church. He is also listed as the pastor for the Greensburg Christian Church.

Aker has been lodged in the Lewis County Detention Center, where he remains on a $200,000 bond.