Anti-gay Pastor Who Said Lgbt Community "Deserved" Orlando Massacre Arrested for Molesting Boy

By Christopher Brennan
New York Daily News
August 26, 2016

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pastor-caused-outrage-orlando-arrested-molestation-article-1.2767578

Ken Adkins, who tweeted that homosexuals "deserved" the Orlando massacre, was arrested for child molestation. (GLYNN COUNTY DETENTION CENTER)

A conservative Florida pastor who said that the victims of the Orlando massacre got “what they deserve” is being charged with child molestation.

Bishop Kenneth Adkins was arrested by Georgia authorities on Friday after allegations that he molested a boy under the age of 16.

The 56-year-old clergyman, who runs churches in Jacksonville, Atlanta and Brunswick, Ga., gained notoriety in the immediate aftermath of Omar Mateen’s shooting at Pulse nightclub in June.

He posted on Twitter that he had “been through so much with these Jacksonville homosexuals that I don’t see none of them as victims. I see them as getting what they deserve.”

Outrage after the comment led him to later tell The Florida Times-Union that his remarks were directed at those in northern Florida rather than the victims.

He leads churches in Jacksonville, Fla., Atlanta and southeastern Georgia (pictured). (VIA GOOGLE MAPS)

The pastor has long been an opponent of the LGBT community, and was a vocal opponent of a bill extending anti-discrimination protection to gays and lesbians in Jacksonville.

Adkins has previously said that he believes homosexuality is “vulgar” and “pornographic.”

Disgust has now turned towards the pastor and his alleged molestation of a child, which his lawyer says stemmed from encounters in 2010.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Stacy Clarke said that agents investigated suspected molestation of the child at the victim’s home, in a car and at Adkins’s church.

Crime scene investigators at the scene of the Pulse club mass shooting on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (JAMES KEIVOM/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

Investigators did not identify a gender for the victim, though Adkins's wife expressed concern for the "young man" that made the allegations.

Charlotte Stormey Adkins told the Times-Union that the boy was mentored by her and her husband, and that she believes the pastor will not be convicted.

Beyond his recent national attention, Adkins was known locally for making inflammatory statements.

In 2012 the Augusta Chronicle reported that a Georgia magistrate ordered the pastor to stop making Facebook posts insulting a school board member he called a “runaway slave” and a county commission candidate who he called a “child molester.”