MEMPHIS (TN)
New York Daily News
March 21, 2018
By Nicole Hensley
A Tennessee megachurch pastor who admitted to having a “sexual incident” with a teen girl more than 20 years ago resigned Tuesday.
Andy Savage had been on a leave of absence from Highpoint Church in Memphis for about two months after the victim came forward accusing him of the 1998 assault in January.
Jules Woodson alleged that Savage assaulted her while he was a youth minister at the Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church in suburban Houston, Texas. He was 22 at the time, while Woodson was 17.
“I have come to see that many wrongs occurred in 1998,” Savage said in a statement to Highpoint’s website.
“The first was my inappropriate relationship with Jules, which was not only immoral, but meets the definition of abuse of power since I was her youth pastor,” the pastor wrote. “Therefore, when our relationship became physical, there could be no claim of mutual consent.”
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