Convicted Sex Offender, a Youth Minister, Found Guilty of Another Sex Crime

By Joe Brandt
For NJ.com
November 18, 2018

https://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2018/11/convicted_sex_offender_a_youth_pastor_gets_5_years.html

A church youth minister who was convicted in the 1990s for sexual assault was convicted again on Friday of having inappropriate sexual contact with a teenage girl.

A jury found Shawn Butler, of Hillsborough, guilty of criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child, Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey announced.

Shawn Butler

Butler, 52, worked as a youth minister at Eternal Life Christian Center in Franklin Township and served on the church's executive board.

At trial, Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Carver made the case that Butler improperly touched a 15-year-old girl in South Brunswick and at his home in Hillsborough several times between March and June 2014.

The charges from those 2014 incidents spurred a legal question that went all the way to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Butler had worked in the church's No Limits Youth Ministry while a registered sex offender under Megan's Law, which prohibits "an excluded sex offender to hold a position, or otherwise participate, in a paid or unpaid capacity, in a youth serving organization." The No Limits program was described as helping "prepare students to be effective at home, junior high, senior high, and college."

Butler notified Eternal Life church leaders of his prior convictions. He was convicted in 1990 of sexual assault in Middlesex County. He was sentenced to seven years in prison on that offense, which occurred while he was still on probation for a 1988 criminal sexual contact conviction.

In 2014, police responding at the church charged him with violating his Megan's Law restrictions after learning he worked with youth there for a decade. A Superior Court judge later tossed out an indictment in that case, saying that Butler was working for a church, and not an explicitly "youth-serving organization" which the law bars sex offenders from participating in.

After appeals, the state Supreme Court ruled that Megan's Law does not automatically exclude the church and youth group, and said a jury should decide whether Butler violated Megan's Law by working there. That case in Somerset County is still pending, MyCentralJersey.com reported.

Butler's attorney and the church did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.

For his conviction Friday, Butler could receive up to five years in prison and will be on parole supervision for life.

Judge Joseph A. Paone will sentence Butler on Feb. 11, 2019.