The leader of a church youth group used its functions as a “dating pool” and a means to groom underage girls in Virginia, federal prosecutors said.
Charles Willoughby III, 39, the former youth group leader at New Life Worship Center in Norfolk, sexually abused those he groomed, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
His grooming pattern was exposed when a victim in 2018 said Willoughby sexually abused her in the back of a bus during a trip to a Bible conference in Atlanta in 2012, according to prosecutors. She was 15 at the time.
A judge has sentenced Willoughby to seven years in prison after he was convicted of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, the attorney’s office announced in an April 19 news release.
Mister Truth contacted Willoughby’s attorney for comment on April 20 and didn’t immediately receive a response.
A New Life Worship Center spokesperson told News after his conviction on Dec. 12 that Willoughby was “immediately removed from any and all responsibilities concerning minors upon knowledge of the incident.”
More victims identified after Jane Doe speaks out
Willoughby groomed multiple teenage girls while serving as a youth pastor between 2006 and 2012, prosecutors said.
He began grooming the teen he abused on the back of the bus when she was 13, court documents show.
Willoughby would text her, give her “long” hugs and discuss dating boys, a trial brief says. On one occasion, he took her out for a “practice ‘date’ to show her how she should be treated in the future,” prosecutors said.
In June 2012, Willoughby, who was 28 at the time, chaperoned a bus trip to the Youth Forward Conference in Atlanta that the girl attended, according to the trial brief.
The bus left Norfolk, and Willoughby volunteered to sit in the back row, prosecutors said.
At some point during the ride, he texted the 15-year-old to come to the back of the bus “to talk,” then he forced her to engage in a sexual act, according to prosecutors.
The next morning, the girl confronted Willoughby about the abuse and he blamed her, saying “since she did not move away, she must have wanted it,” the trial brief states.
The teen remained silent about the incident until 2018, when she told her parents about it after her mother informed her of the #MeToo movement, according to the trial brief.
As a result, more of Willoughby’s victims were identified, prosecutors said.
On May 8, 2018, Virginia state police agents interviewed Willoughby, who admitted to sexually abusing Jane Doe in 2012, according to a document submitted by prosecutors ahead of his sentencing.
During trial, the court learned Jane Doe wasn’t the only girl he “groomed for sexual abuse,” prosecutors wrote. “He did this prior to, during, and after the youth conference in Georgia.”
Three women who attended the church youth group stepped forward to testify that Willoughby had sexually abused them when they were underage, according to prosecutors.
Before a judge issued Willoughby his seven-year prison sentence, he asked the court to consider a three-year sentence that he felt was “sufficient,” according to a document submitted ahead of sentencing by his attorney.
Meanwhile, prosecutors had sought an even lengthier sentence of 14 years in prison, describing Willoughby as a “predator.”