Pastor guilty in sex-abuse case

— A Miller County jury has found South Texarkana Baptist Church pastor Travis Payne guilty of sexual misconduct with a 3-year-old girl and sentenced him to five years in prison.

After several hours of deliberations on Tuesday, the jury had sent 8th Circuit Judge Brent Haltom a note indicating it was deadlocked. Haltom instructed the jury to continue deliberating. About an hour later, the jury returned a guilty verdict.

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Deputy prosecutors Connie Mitchell and Stephanie Black noted that Payne’s case is unusual because sexual-assault cases rarely include eyewitness testimony.

“We are very grateful this eyewitness came forward on behalf of the 3-year-old victim who could not speak for herself,” Mitchell and Black said.

Miriam Spiros told the jury that she and her husband, Phillip - a music minister at Macedonia Baptist Church in Fouke - entered Payne’s church about 6:45 p.m. on April 25, 2011, for a revival where Phillip Spiros had agreed to sing.

Miriam Spiros testified that she circumvented the sanctuary, where the revival service was to begin at 7 p.m., to make a quick trip to the restroom. But on her way there, in a hallway behind the sanctuary, she said she was met with a disturbing sight.

“I heard a man say, ‘Be still. I won’t hurt you,’ and a child’s voice saying, ‘No,’” Miriam Spiros said.

She told the jury that the girl was standing on a piano bench with her shorts pulled down and her genitalia exposed. Payne, 67, had his hand between the girl’s thighs, touching her private area, Miriam Spiros said.

“I panicked. I darted in on them,” Miriam Spiros said.

Payne quickly pulled up the child’s pants and set her on the floor, Miriam Spiros testified. The girl reached for her, said something about wanting her mother and a few other words that Miriam Spiros didn’t understand. She said she asked Payne what the child had said.

“He said, ‘I don’t know. I can’t understand a word she’s saying,’” before picking the girl up by the waist and carrying her away, Miriam Spiros testified.

Miriam Spiros, a licensed vocational nurse, testified that Payne had been touching the girl in a sexual manner.

“I was in shock,” Miriam Spiros said. “How could he dothat in God’s house?”

Miriam Spiros said that a short while later, Payne handed her a visitor’s card requesting her e-mail address and cell-phone number, as she sat in the sanctuary.

Phillip Spiros said that after his wife told him what she’d witnessed, he contacted Wallace Edgar, an evangelist participating in the revival who had previously pastored one of Texarkana’s larger Baptist churches, for advice.

“After we talked, I expected everything would be taken care of,” Phillip Spiros said.

Phillip Spiros said he later contacted Scott Page, Deacon Committee leader at South Texarkana Baptist Church, and asked whether Payne was still pastor.

Phillip Spiros said that when he realized nothing had been done, he and his wife contacted law enforcement.

Texarkana police detective Wayne Easley told the jury under questioning by Mitchell that Payne described Miriam Spiros as a “lady of the street,” and claimed that Edgar and Page both suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

Payne denied he ever encountered Miriam Spiros at the church. Payne also denied that he pulled the girl’s pants down or that he ever touched her inappropriately.

Arkansas, Pages 20 on 03/04/2012

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