Former Plover youth minister pleads guilty to repeated sexual assault of child
STEVENS POINT − A former Plover youth minister pleaded guilty Friday morning in Portage County Circuit Court to two felony counts of repeated sexual assault of the same child.
Portage County Circuit Court Judge Michael Zell ordered a pre-sentence investigation for Jordan R. Huffman, 52, who currently is in the Winnebago County Jail on a $1 million bail for unrelated charges of first-degree sexual assault of a child, child enticement and three counts of felony bail jumping.
Zell scheduled a sentencing hearing for Oct. 3.
As part of a plea agreement in the Portage County case, a charge of first-degree sexual assault of a child under age 13 was dismissed. Three charges of child enticement, a charge of causing a child age 13 to 18 to view sexual activity and a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a child were dismissed but read into the record.
According to the criminal complaint, in 2017 a couple approached Huffman, who at the time was a pastor at Woodlands Church in Plover, and asked him to mentor their 12-year-old son. The boy had started drinking and getting into trouble.
The boy told police instead of helping him, Huffman did the opposite. Huffman gave the boy alcohol, marijuana and prescription pills, according to the complaint. The child said Huffman would drive him to a remote location at the end of a dirt road after the boy was drunk or under the influence of marijuana and inappropriately touched him with his mouth or hands.
The boy said the encounters happened multiple times but no incident happened at Woodlands Church, other than Huffman telling the child he had alcohol, marijuana or nicotine cartridges for him, according to the complaint. He said Huffman had sexual intercourse with him one time at Huffman's home while his wife and children were gone.
When Huffman left Woodlands Church and took a job with Forest Lakes District Evangelical Free Church of America in Stevens Point, several encounters occurred in Huffman's office there, according to the complaint. The assaults lasted about five years.
The boy told police he let Huffman do these things because the pastor was his mentor and because he was drunk or high. When the boy was 17, he told Huffman he didn't want to have sexual contact with him anymore, and Huffman respected the request, according to the complaint. About six months later, Huffman told the boy he no longer wanted to hang out with him.
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Contact Karen Madden at 715-345-2245 or kmadden@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KMadden715, Instagram @kmadden715 or Facebook at www.facebook.com/karen.madden.33.
This article originally appeared on Stevens Point Journal: Former Plover youth minister pleads guilty to sexual assault of child
