Oregon pastor faces child pornography charges in Denver federal court

By Kirk Mitchel
Denver Post
September 13, 2016

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/13/oregon-pastor-child-pornography-charges/

A 56-year-old Portland, Ore., pastor and former national youth camp official for the United Methodist Church made his initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Denver on felony charges for allegedly producing child pornography while taking boys to national parks in Colorado and across the West, authorities say.

James Parkhurst, 56, who was arrested in Portland on Aug. 2, was indicted in late August by a federal grand jury in Denver and appeared in federal court on Monday, according to a news release by Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Acting U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer of the District of Colorado.

Parkhurst produced 163 child pornography images of five boys taken at national parks in Colorado and across the West and then sent them by U.S. mail to 15 states to child pornography collectors, according to court documents. The images include pictures of nude and partially nude boys between the ages of 9 and 12, some while the boys took baths or as they urinated.

“In many of the images, the boys are looking directly at the camera and smiling or smirking with an expression that suggests sexual coyness,” according to a Denver court affidavit.

The Oregon-Idaho Conference Board of Camp and Retreat Ministries named Parkhurst as its executive director in 2015, according to a board new release. Parkhurst, a United Methodist deacon and a native of Kentucky, attended and worked at camps throughout his life, the news release says. It said he was also a camp director in Detroit, overseeing four sites. He oversaw the camping and youth ministries for the Desert Southwest Conference for over a decade and was the vice chairman of the church’s national camp committee.

The church news release says Parkhurst plays guitar, sings in a symphony chorus, loves to hike, does crossword puzzles and is an avid reader. That release also said enjoys spoiling two boys on annual trips to national parks in the West.

Many of the nude pictures were taken between Aug. 16 and Aug. 20, 2010 in the Embassy Suites Denver, the court document says. Pictures were also taken in the Antero Hot Springs Cabins in Salida.

The court documents indicate that Parkhurst would regularly take boys on camping trips to national parks including Rocky Mountain National Park on annual trips between 2007 and 2014, the records say. During the 2010 trip, he traveled with the boys to Manitou Springs, Pikes Peak and Estes Park. He admitted to investigators that he took the nude pictures of boys.

He also took the boys to Germany, Canada, France, Peru, Brazil, Vietnam, Italy, Greece and Sweden and Hawaii, the records indicate.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the pornography case with assistance from investigative analysts in the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section’s High Technology Investigative Unit.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, the news release says.