GEORGIA
Ledger-News
By Jessica Lindley
Posted on Apr 30, 2014
A former First Baptist Church of Canton volunteer accused of molesting a child at Bible school in the summer of 2010 pleaded guilty this month to the lesser offense of sexual battery against a minor.
Cherokee County Superior Court Chief Judge Jackson Harris sentenced Matthew Brent Sheffield on April 18 to serve eight years on probation for the aforementioned offense.
Conditions of his probation also require Sheffield to register as a sex offender.
According to court records, Sheffield was indicted by a Cherokee County Grand Jury in April 2011 on two counts of child molestation. The indictment charged Sheffield with inappropriately touching a juvenile’s thigh and leg in June 2010, as well as touching the boy’s buttocks.
A civil suit filed by the parents of the juvenile, which was dismissed with prejudice last July, contended that the alleged misconduct occurred during a Bible school program at First Baptist Church of Canton and again during a church sanctioned trip to the beach.
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