FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) — A former Springdale pastor who thought he was meeting a 14-year-old boy for sex was sentenced Thursday (Feb. 7) to 10 years in federal prison.
Timothy Lee Reddin, 67, pleaded guilty in October 2018 in U.S. District Court to one count of attempted online enticement of a minor.
Judge Tim Brooks also fined Reddin $1,900 and ordered him to have no unsupervised contact with minors. Reddin’s prison sentence will be followed by 25 years of supervised release.
Reddin, who served as a part-time pastor at Turner Street Baptist Church, was arrested Aug. 3, 2018, after he contacted an undercover federal agent who was posing as a teenager looking for a sexual encounter.
Reddin sent the agent a photo of his penis and said he could “coach” him to perform oral sex, according to court documents.
Reddin also promised to keep the affair secret, saying “I’ll never tell! I could go to jail!”
When police arrested Reddin at the agreed meeting location, investigators searched his car and found lubrication, a sexual device, and a hotel key, according to the documents.
Reddin had a prior conviction for child pornography. He was sentenced in September 2000 to 27 months in prison after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography, 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.
Before that, he 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 in 2000 denied having ever molested a child, saying it’s something he would never do.
Reddin testified 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.
