WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
By GREG JORDAN Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON — A diagnostic evaluation was completed recently for a former youth pastor and admitted transgender sex offender who is facing a prison term after pleading guilty last year to sexual abuse first degree.
James Lilly, 25, of Bluefield pleaded guilty in August 2016 in Mercer County Circuit Court to three counts of sexual abuse in the first degree. Raleigh County Judge John A. Hutchinson, who was assigned to the case after Mercer County Judge Derek Swope recused himself, delayed Lilly’s sentencing on Dec. 21, 2016 and remanded him to the state Department of Corrections so a diagnostic study could be completed with regard to how he would be classified as an inmate.
Lilly was arrested Jan. 12, 2016 and indicted in February that same year on 28 counts of sexual abuse in the first degree as well as charges of sexual assault third degree and incest.
After the arrest, Detective K.L. Adams of the Bluefield Police Department said that Lilly, by his own admission, was transgender and in the process of becoming a woman.
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