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“Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 19:14 (KJV)

Leslie Mason — Southern Baptist churches, Virginia and Illinois

A pastor who admitted relationships with four girls, took a seven-year plea sentence — and after release returned to the pulpit of a different Southern Baptist church a few miles away.

Southern Baptist Convicted

Person
Leslie Mason
Role
Pastor
Institution
Southern Baptist churches in Virginia and Illinois
Location
Virginia; central Illinois
Status
Convicted under a plea agreement
Sentence
7 years in prison

Case in brief

Tier 1 · Court-proven

Leslie Mason pastored Southern Baptist churches in Virginia and Illinois. Per the Houston Chronicle’s “Abuse of Faith” investigation, Mason admitted to investigators to relationships with four girls and received a seven-year prison sentence under a plea deal in which all but two charges were dropped. After his release, he returned to the pulpit of a different Southern Baptist church a few miles away and preached at multiple Southern Baptist churches in central Illinois — saying, in the Chronicle’s reporting, that those churches “absolutely know about my past.”

The institution

The case is filed from the Chronicle’s court-record-based database reporting. Its institutional fact is the post-release one: congregations in the same fellowship, a few miles away, put a convicted pastor back in a pulpit with knowledge of his record, per his own statement to reporters.

The record

Tier 1 · Court-proven

Status

Sentence served; documented back in ministry after release. This file will be corrected if docket-level sourcing supersedes the Chronicle account.

Records requested & responses

This archive has not filed records requests in this case. The file rests on the published sources below and will be updated if court or institutional records are obtained, or if that changes.

Sources

Filed October 18, 2026, from the published sources below. Minor victims are never named or identified in this file.

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