Former youth pastor gets 60 years in prison for sex crimes involving boys

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Tuesday, February 28, 2023

A former Southern Baptist youth pastor was sentenced to 60 years in prison Friday after he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of sexual assault and child pornography charges involving six different boys.

While 33-year-old former youth pastor Keenan Hord was sentenced to 16 years in prison, The Commercial Appeal reports that he will be eligible for parole in 15 years.

Hord, who worked for First Baptist Church Bentonville in Arkansas and Bellevue Baptist Church in Arlington, Tennessee, will have to register as a sex offender and have no unsupervised visits with children, including his own, if he is released early, the publication said.

The former youth pastor worked at Bellevue Baptist Church from 2011 to 2016, when he joined the staff at First Baptist Bentonville. Hord was arrested in August 2022 in connection with crimes committed from 2020 through 2022, when he was still serving as a youth pastor at First Baptist Church Bentonville.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault in the first degree, six counts of sexual assault in the second degree, one count of sexual indecency with a child and three counts of distributing, possession or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child.

Hord, who initially pleaded not guilty to his charges, allegedly had inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old. Detectives found more than 5,000 text messages between him and one victim.

Hord engaged in "sexual intercourse or deviate sexual activity" with multiple minors in 2020-2021 while he was employed "in a position of trust or authority over the victims," court documents cited by KNWA show.

Bentonville Police also took "multiple electronic devices" from the former youth pastor's home and obtained surveillance video of Hord inside a home.

At the time of Hord's arrest, First Baptist Church Bentonville released a statement: "We are ministering to the survivors and their families who demonstrated incredible courage in coming forward. We are praying for God's perfect peace for those who have been harmed and God's justice for the abuse of His people."

Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecutor, said as soon as the church learned of the abuse allegations against Hord, they contacted authorities.

"It's horrible. Look, even Jesus in the New Testament tells us there are wolves in sheep's clothing, right," Smith told THV 11, noting that he, along with the victims and their families, are happy with the sentence.

One victim said he didn't feel anything for Hord but indifference in an impact statement while one parent lamented that the former youth pastor stole the innocence of the boys in God's name.

"The reality is, with a person like this, you're never going to get what you feel like is equal to what they have done," Smith said. "But what you can get is to a point where you feel like that it allows the families to move on."