Southern Baptist leaders release secret list of accused abusers. Three local men are on it
On Thursday, Southern Baptist Convention leaders published a list of accused abusive ministers that previous staff maintained in secret for over a decade, according to the Tennessean.
On the list are three local men who are former Southern Baptist ministers convicted on sexual abuse charges.
Releasing the list is “an initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention,” Rolland Slade, chairman of the SBC Executive Committee, and Willie McLaurin, the committee's interim president and CEO, said in a statement accompanying the release.
The list, published on the SBC's website at www.sbc.net, itself is 205 pages long, including numerous links to news articles as well as descriptions of charges and convictions.
More: Four Cincinnati area men connected to Southern Baptist sex scandal
Local men on the list
In 2016, Joseph Niemeyer turned himself in to Independence police and admitted to molesting a young girl in his care. Niemeyer worked with youth at the Banklick Baptist Church in Walton, Kentucky until he was arrested. He also volunteered at Twenhofel Middle School.
He was convicted of sodomy and sexual abuse of a child and sentenced to 20 years, and he is in prison in Beattyville, Kentucky.
Charles Edward Engle, of Williamsburg Township in Clermont County, pleaded guilty two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and was sentenced in October 2013 to two years in prison.
Engle was a youth minister at First Baptist Church in Mount Orab, Brown County, where he was accused of assaulting a 15-year-old, prosecutors said, at the church’s youth ministry house.
He was sentenced to two years in prison and required to register afterward as a sex offender in the state. Ohio Department of Corrections records show he was released Oct. 14, 2015.
David Glenn Boyd pleaded guilty to child pornography charges before Judge Karen Caldwell in the Eastern District of Kentucky in March 2018.
In October of 2016, Kentucky State Police investigators obtained a search warrant for Boyd's residence in Wheelwright, Kentucky, and Boyd showed up during the search, court records show.
Police collected Boyd's electronic media and found 42 still images and 35 videos that met the federal definition of child pornography. Court records state that Boyd admitted "he knew the images he received, possessed and distributed through the use of his computer depicted minors."
Boyd's expected release date is Aug. 21, 2026, and he is expected to register as a sex offender as a condition of supervised release.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Three local men on Southern Baptist secret list of accused abusers
