A conservative Florida pastor who said that the victims of the Orlando massacre got “what they deserve” is being charged with child molestation.
Bishop Kenneth Adkins was arrested by Georgia authorities on Friday after allegations that he molested a boy under the age of 16.
The 56-year-old clergyman, who runs churches in Jacksonville, Atlanta and Brunswick, Ga., gained notoriety in the immediate aftermath of Omar Mateen’s shooting at Pulse nightclub in June.
He posted on Twitter that he had “been through so much with these Jacksonville homosexuals that I don’t see none of them as victims. I see them as getting what they deserve.”
Outrage after the comment led him to later tell The Florida Times-Union that his remarks were directed at those in northern Florida rather than the victims.
Disgust has now turned towards the pastor and his alleged molestation of a child, which his lawyer says stemmed from encounters in 2010.
Investigators did not identify a gender for the victim, though Adkins’s wife expressed concern for the “young man” that made the allegations.
Charlotte Stormey Adkins told the Times-Union that the boy was mentored by her and her husband, and that she believes the pastor will not be convicted.
Beyond his recent national attention, Adkins was known locally for making inflammatory statements.
In 2012 the Augusta Chronicle reported that a Georgia magistrate ordered the pastor to stop making Facebook posts insulting a school board member he called a “runaway slave” and a county commission candidate who he called a “child molester.”