Since You Asked: Former youth pastor has June trial date in privacy invasion case

Mail Tribune
May 8, 2017

http://www.mailtribune.com/news/20170508/since-you-asked-former-youth-pastor-has-june-trial-date-in-privacy-invasion-case

What’s happening in the case of Donald Courtney Biggs, the former Medford pastor who was arrested a couple years ago?

— No name given, via email

Biggs, 38, formerly a youth pastor with Mountain Church in downtown Medford before his 2015 arrest, has a trial set for June 12 in Medford, U.S. District Court records show.

He is lodged in the Jackson County Jail without bail, where he’s been since January 2015 on federal charges alleging he secretly recorded minors while they were changing their clothes, solicited photographs of them and transported three victims across state lines in incidents between June 2012 and March 2014.

His last court appearance was in November. Case filings show that Biggs is on his third court-appointed defense lawyer, previously requesting different federal public defenders in November 2015 and June 2016. Reasons behind the disagreements with his previous lawyers aren’t listed in court documents.

Nine juvenile victims are identified by their initials in case filings, three of whom Biggs is accused of taking to California. Biggs pleaded not guilty to nine counts of using or attempting to use a minor to produce a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct and three counts of transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity with a minor.

Medford police arrested Biggs Jan. 15, 2015, on burglary charges after he allegedly broke into the downtown church and attempted to steal hard drives, according to previous reports. He’d been placed on administrative leave since the previous fall pending an investigation regarding inappropriate text messages with a juvenile in the congregation.

After serving a search warrant at Biggs’ Jacksonville home, investigators found about 28 videos recorded in a bathroom by a hidden-button camera, according to court documents. Investigators seized as evidence five mobile phones, two laptops, three external hard drives and five SD memory cards. Further information has been sealed while the case is open.