STOVER, Mo. (AP) — A former Missouri pastor accused of having sex with a 16-year-old girl in 2005 has been sentenced to four years in prison.
The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/1YW1B6C) reports that 45-year-old Travis Smith entered an Alford plea last week in Laclede County to charges of statutory rape and statutory sodomy, and was sentenced. When a defendant enters an Alford plea, the defendant does not admit guilt but acknowledges there's enough evidence for a conviction.
A mistrial had been declared in 2011, when a potential juror commented about a witness in the case.
Prosecutors say the girl's father caught her and Smith, who was her youth pastor at Pilot Grove Baptist Church in unincorporated Moniteau County at the time, having sex at a cemetery.
As part of the plea, Smith pleaded guilty in two other cases involving two other teenage girls.