A Georgia megachurch is facing allegations it failed to warn congregants about a former youth volunteer who’s been charged with trying to traffic a 16-year-old on the dark web.

Records obtained by The Roys Report (TRR) show that on June 30, authorities arrested Kelly Garrett Ivey—a former youth volunteer at Rock Springs Church in Milner, Ga.—and charged him with child cruelty and kidnapping. And last Monday, a grand jury indicted Ivey, 41, on first and second-degree charges of cruelty to children, trafficking, and three counts of criminal attempt to commit a felony, including kidnapping.

    • xuxebiko@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      when has it ever been them? But the bible-thumping crowd will continue to demonize vulnerable communities, because they don;t care about children being groomed or trafficked. They just want to be awful, horrible people and feel strong by punching down.

      It’s like their pro-forced birth stance, which is about denying women their basic human rights & controlling women.

  • Tolstoshev@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Me reading: Former youth volunteer who’s been charged with… “Here we go again, another groomer in the church”

    …trying to traffic a 16yo on the dark web. “What in the fuck???”

          • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I didn’t realize quite how dismissive of it they were. I still don’t agree with you 100% but in this case the church acted horribly and I was in the wrong with my last comment.

            • EsheLynn
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              1 year ago

              My son came out about being molested at church years after the fact. My brother thinks he lied about being molested four years after he stopped going to church, so he wouldn’t have to go to church (???), And my mom thinks it was my dad, not the pastor my son insists it is. Yes. It is “the church.”

          • RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The congregants seems to be jumping to the conclusion that the church was formally notified of Ivey’s status, somehow, and sat on the information while Ivey was still a threat. But it’s not clear this was the case.

            It doesn’t excuse church leaderships’ tone-deaf response to the arrest, though.

              • RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Considering how keyed in churches tend to be with local cops/fascists and that the cops and news stories would have contacted the church to find out if he had done anything else: They knew.

                But this is an educated guess; there is nothing in the article to support this timeline of events.

                Depending on who you believe, Ivey’s formal association with the church ended 20 months previous, or maybe he was seen at the church in an unofficial capacity as recently as June. Either way, there’s nothing here to suggest police had contacted the church or notified them. It would certainly be reasonable diligence for them to do so, but then police are not known for diligence. They may have also been concerned that someone would tip off Ivey and he would become a flight risk.

                The absolute bare minimum is to send out an email the moment the information is public

                Agreed. It is disappointing (if not surprising) that the church leadership did not IMMEDIATELY assess potential impact to the children of the church and school where Ivey volunteered.

        • cre0@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          And “the church” failed to disclose this guy’s actions to the parents of children that “the church” allowed him to be around.

          Is that really “the hill” you want to die on?

          • sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            No it is not. I changed my mind after realizing how badly the church actually acted. I wrongfully assumed this was another case of people massively exagerrating the implications of a situation in a desperate attempt to demonize religion somehow. I should have looked more into it before making the comment, but I was too annoyed for critical thinking and my instincts got the better of me.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Because 16 years old was probably getting too close to the expiration date for this monster and figured he could make a quick buck

  • HubertManne@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    this is the problem with the name of this sub. not really the name but like I had a guy in another convo suggest catholicism was worse than other christians because of the kid didlin and its like dude its all over in the other churches they just don’t have a large central authority to go after.

  • AEsheron@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Maybe it’s just the end of work grogginess, but I read, “trying to sell teen on dark net,” as though they were trying to convince them to check it out, by a marijuana, etc. Like trying to sell your friend on a TV show or something.