MISSISSIPPI
Associated Baptist Press
By Bob Allen
A Mississippi judge on Wednesday refused to reduce a 10-year prison sentence he handed down to a former Southern Baptist traveling evangelist and popular youth speaker convicted of video voyeurism in 2012.
“I think basically I got you right,” DeSoto County circuit judge Gerald Chatham told prisoner Sammy Nuckolls, who preached at churches across the country and events including LifeWay Christian Resources Centrifuge summer camps before he was caught secretly recording video of women while they took showers and during other private moments in Arkansas and Mississippi and allegedly in Texas and Virginia.
Nuckolls, who acknowledged at trial watching women at his home in Olive Branch, Miss., without their knowledge, filed a motion in June requesting judicial review of two five-year sentences that run consecutively and 11 others that are concurrent. Had all 13 sentences been consecutive, it would have added up to 65 years.
After 17 months behind bars, however, Nuckolls’ lawyer said his client is remorseful, has learned from his mistakes and due to restrictions that come with being a registered sex offender, would pose no danger to society. Attorney Ronald Michael of Booneville, Miss., asked the court to give Nuckolls credit for time served and place him under house arrest with monitoring and treatment for as long as Judge Chatham desired.
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