Justice is served. Another pedophile pastor is heading for prison.
District Judge Kim Cudney sentenced the Rev. Bryan Sprung, 49, to 241 months in prison for aggravated criminal sodomy, 59 months for each of two counts of aggravated indecent liberties and six months for making a criminal threat.
Source: Former Miltonvale pastor sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. By Sharon Montague
Former Pastor Sprung was not on my radar. His case follows a patter of abuse that I know find common. A man in a position of power find himself alone with a young child - abuse follows. In this case leaving an innocent ten-year-old girl to deal her abuse for the rest of her life.
The problem is trust. People trust pastors. They make bad decisions based on trust. Take this case, the mother of the abused child knew of the abuse, but did not believe her daughter. Co-workers knew of the abuse, and another person witnessed inappropriate behavior, but did not act. All because of misplaced trust. The most common reason for trust - the abuser is a pastor.
She testified that her daughter had been attending Friend’s Club, a youth group program at the Wesleyan Church in Miltonvale. Sprung was a pastor in the church at that time. She said there were numerous times when Sprung would pick her daughter up–and bring her home– from Friend’s Club.
Walsh asked her if Sprung had ever requested access to their home, to which she replied that he had asked for a key on more than one occasion. She said he wanted to be able to wake up the girl to take her to church on Sundays.
Source: Blade-Empire - Sprung makes appearance in district court, by Jessica LeDuc
If any other person requested unsupervised access to a ten year old girl and the parents granted the access, the police would be justified in hauling the parents into court. In retrospect, it seems colossally irresponsible to allow a man to enter your home to wake your daughter and take her to his office for "special attention". What were the parents thinking?
3 comments:
With the sheer number of times this sort of behavior has been been in the public eye, you would think this behavior would have brought up glaring red flags for these parents. They have to be completely blind.
I was acquainted with Bryan Sprung when he was a pastor of a church in my former hometown of Enid, Oklahoma.
I did not know him well, but our sons were very good friends. All i can say is that his son is such a humble, decent, and hard-working child. I always encouraged the friendship between our sons. Those sons are now both 21, with the Sprung son already married with children.
What the hell happens to these people? Don't they watch "To Catch A Predator"? Sad. For the family, the victim, and even this lost man who at one time probably meant well.
I remember when i was living in Enid, the pastor of the biggest church, I think it was 1st Baptist, was arrested for soliciting sex in a public men's room. Again, married with kids. He left town immediately.
There's just something about living a repressed life on the surface, because of the book one claims is the "inerrant word of God", that takes its toll. The harder they preach about the sins of others, the more shocking and aberrant their behavior becomes.
Pastor Sprung was the pastor at Cedar Ridge Wesleyan Church in Enid, Oklahoma for several years. During his time served at our church he grew very close to my family, as my family did to him as well. Pastor Sprung is not a criminal. Though there are several things that occured that may seem out of the ordinary to some, there has never been anything that occured that was completly inappropriate. Bryan always welcomed anyone into the church, no matter the circumstance or their living situation. When he was pastoring our church I was in the youth group and very active with the church, so obviously I was around pastor bryan very frequently.
What I have gathered from the situation, the parents of the girl where not very attentive to what the child was involved in. This leads to people thinking that this girl had problems at home long before she brought them with her to church. She is a disturbed child and needs mental help, wheather this situation actually occured or if Pastor Sprung was wrongly accused.
Sprung always believed that God was on his side, and I truely beleive that he is. Pastor sprung always spoke about reaching out to people in prison and maybe this is his oppurtunity to make a difference.
This situation has bothered me greatly for months and months, Im not sure what I can do about it. Unforturnatly, the situation is said and done. This is very sad and I honestly believe that Pastor Sprung has been wrongly accused. This has messed with not only my mind but also my hope and my faith. This is a very touchy subject and someone needs to do something about it.
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