FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) — A local pastor on Monday (Sept. 17) pleaded not guilty to trying to meet a 14-year-old boy for sex earlier this summer.
Timothy Lee Reddin, 67, was indicted in U.S. District Court on one count of attempted online enticement of a minor.
Reddin’s trial is set for Oct. 15. He faces a fine and a minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted.
Reddin was arrested Aug. 3 after exchanging messages with a Homeland Security Officer posing as a teenage boy, according to court documents.
Reddin, who served as a part-time pastor at Turner Street Baptist Church in Springdale, messaged the agent in July, telling him he would take him for lunch and could “coach” him to perform oral sex.
Reddin also wrote that he was a “gentle guy really,” and that there was “no pressure to do anything else until another time.”
During their conversation, the agent said Reddin sent four images of an adult’s penis and one of a naked man’s behind, according to the doucments.
Reddin was sentenced in September 2000 in a Little Rock federal court to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty to possessing 10 illegal images — including one depicting a child younger than 12, according to the Associated Press.
Reddin had resigned in 1998 as director of missions for the Central Baptist Association in Benton after two people there also found child pornography on a computer he used, and confronted him about it, the AP reported.
He had earlier spent 16 years as a pastor in Hot Springs Village and taught high school for three years in Heber Springs and McCrory.
The AP also reported that Reddin denied having ever molesting a child, saying it’s something he would never do.
Reddin testified in 2000 that he was sexually abused as a child. He said he was repeatedly molested by an older boy who was a friend of his brother’s, until Reddin’s family moved away when he was 15, according to the AP.
Reddin was being held at the Washington County Detention Center on a $1,500 bond and a hold for federal court.
He has a hearing set for Monday (Sept. 24) in Washington County Circuit Court for failing to register as a sex offender.
