MISSISSIPPI
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A former Southern Baptist music minister is asking a Mississippi judge to dismiss an eight-count indictment charging him with sex crimes in the 1980s, claiming the allegations are too old to be prosecuted.

Lawyers for John Langworthy, associate pastor of music and ministries at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss., before his September 2011 arrest, filed a motion recently contending the statute of limitations has expired that would allow authorities to file the charges.

John LangworthyLangworthy, 50, resigned from his church job before confessing to the congregation Aug. 7, 2011, to “sexual indiscretions with younger males” that he said occurred before he moved to Clinton 22 years ago. A month later he was arrested for alleged molestation of five boys, ages 10-13, that he contacted through volunteer work at two Baptist churches while a student at Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College between 1980…