Former Music Minister Sentenced for Child Sex

By Andrew Wolfson
The Courier-Journal
September 6, 2016

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2016/09/06/former-music-minister-sentenced-child-sex/89915482/

Howard Key Chambers

Ending a child sex case called a “pit of horror,” a former Oldham County minister was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison, the maximum he could have gotten under a plea agreement.

Howard Key Chambers, who advertised online that he wanted to fulfill a “granddaddy babysitter fantasy," admitted that he had allowed a 10-year-old girl to perform oral sex on him seven or eight times as the man who trafficked her looked on and took pictures.

“Howard Chambers subjected this young girl to repeated sexual abuse,” stated U.S. Attorney John Kuhn. “Acting with unfathomable selfishness, he chose to traumatize a child in favor of his own self-gratification. The goal of my office was to obtain the maximum sentence of incarceration that insured Chambers would never touch another child.”

Rob Eggert, one of Chambers’ lawyers, said he was disappointed by the sentence. Chief U.S. District Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. could have sentenced him to as little as 15 years.

Chambers led a youth choir at DeHaven Baptist Church in La Grange.

A co-defendant, Christopher Kosicki, whom Chambers met through Craigslist was previously sentenced to 50 years. Kosicki, a former softball coach in Louisville, admitted to sexually abusing 10 girls, including the girl in question and friends she had for sleepovers.

The government said Chambers gave Kosicki money several times after engaging in sexual activity with the child, and on at least one occasion, admitted to giving money directly to the child.

Prosecutors called the case one of the worst in the region.

Chambers, whose trial was to begin Tuesday, has been in custody since his arrest in October 2014, when Magistrate Judge James Moyer refused to release him.

“This is the pit of horror,” Moyers said. “This the worst kind of abuse I can imagine.”

The Indianapolis Police Department, District of Columbia Metro Police, Louisville Metro Police and the FBI conducted the investigation, and the case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jo E. Lawless and Spencer McKiness.

Reporter Andrew Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com