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  Irvington Pastor Convicted on Sex Abuse Charges

Associated Press, carried in Ledger-Enquirer [Mobile AL]
February 4, 2006

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/13793200.htm

MOBILE, Ala. - An Irvington pastor has been convicted of first-degree sex abuse involving a father and son, who described similar cases of abuse 20 years apart.

The Rev. Dennis Lamar Fields showed no visible reaction Friday when the verdict was read before Mobile County Circuit Judge Charles Graddick.

Fields was ordered to jail to await sentencing March 9.

Fields, 52, pastor at Bethel Holiness Church in south Mobile County, went on trial Wednesday, charged with sodomy and sex abuse.

Jurors decided that the crimes did not constitute sodomy. The felony first-degree sex abuse conviction could bring one to 10 years in prison.

Assistant District Attorney Steve Giardini said he will ask Graddick to impose 10-year sentences for each of the convictions, to be served consecutively, for a total of 30 years.

According to testimony, charges were filed against Fields in early 2005 after the adult victim, who had kept quiet all these years, learned that his son, now 11, had also been a victim of Fields' sexual abuse.

 
 

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