Pastor Tommy R. Shelton Jr. submitted an Alford plea in his child molestation case. Shelton was accused of molesting two boys in the 1990s. In exchange for his plea in the first case, charges were dropped in the second case.
One man accused Shelton of fondling, kissing and performing oral sex on him when he was a 14-year-old boy around 1995. The man had gone to Shelton for counseling and piano lessons and two of the alleged assaults occurred inside the church, the man testified at a preliminary hearing in May 2010.
A second man testified that Shelton would direct him into the the woods during bicycle rides and then fondle him. The man said the assaults ocurred in 1997, when he was 11 years old.
Pastor Shelton will spend between 4 and 16 years in prison. At 66, he my pay for his crime with his life. Shelton was the pastor at Community Church of God in the Dunn Loring area.
