‘Concerned about how her parents would react’: Texas minister sends terrifying threat to teen to get explicit pictures

Warning: The article contains details of attempted child sexual abuse. Please proceed with care.

A Texas minister has been charged with distributing child pornography after an investigation turned up nude photos of young girls on his computer. Jon Sheptock, 49, was the worship minister at First Montgomery Baptist Church. The church has acted fast, saying he’s been removed “from all responsibilities at the church,” according to a statement reported by KTRK.

Sheptock was actually taken into custody while he was doing ministry work with inmates at a women’s prison in central Texas. The whole investigation kicked off back in August after a 26-year-old woman came forward to detectives. She told them she believes Sheptock stole a nude photo of her from her iCloud account a whopping nine years ago.

Unfortunately, it gets even darker than the theft of a teenage girl’s picture. The victim claims that after taking the nude image, Sheptock “sent the image of the victim (and) told her he wanted more explicit images of her”. That’s already horrifying, but then he allegedly stepped up the threat. According to an affidavit, “The defendant (Sheptock) then sent her a video depicting someone being physically assaulted, accompanied by a statement implying that he did not want that to happen to her”.

Texas Minister threatened a teenage girl for nudes

This is absolutely chilling, and it explains why the victim, who was 17 at the time, hadn’t come forward earlier. She told investigators she didn’t report it because of “her parents’ strong religious beliefs” and that “the victim was concerned about how her parents would react to the fact she had taken a nude photo of herself,” the affidavit says. What an awful position to be put in.

As the investigation continued, the victim told detectives that Sheptock had shown her other nude photos of women and young girls on his computer. Disturbingly, she says he sent her a nude photo of young girls as recently as last October. Detectives searched Sheptock’s home last week, according to KHOU.

Since he was at the women’s prison in Gatesville, officials from Montgomery County had to ask the Texas Department of Public Safety for help in taking him into custody. The First Montgomery Baptist Church has released a statement on the matter. It pointed out that Sheptock “did not have responsibilities overseeing children in the church or school except occasionally in a large group setting with other adults.”

The church also stated that it would “fully cooperate with law enforcement and trust the judicial process.” It is fortunate that the church wants to help, unlike other cases where people get away.