Idaho pastor accused of sex crimes had ‘control’ over victims, officials say

Editor’s note: This story contains graphic details of sexual assault allegations.

BOISE – Newly unsealed court records detailing the Elmore County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation into an Idaho pastor accused of sex crimes allege that he used his role to victimize members of his congregation.

Deputies arrested Gregory Jones late last month after an investigation into the Liberty Christian Fellowship Church pastor, who is accused of having inappropriate conduct with five women, one of whom was a 16-year-old girl at the time. The alleged crimes took place at the Mountain Home church or its adjoining child care facility, the NXT Dream Center, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by the Idaho Statesman.

The 43-page document was unsealed Monday, after 4th District Judge Brent Ferguson asked the Elmore County Prosecutor’s Office during a May 8 hearing to publish a redacted version of the affidavit, stating that the information was something the public has a right to know, according to court minutes from the hearing.

Jones was listed as the president of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship Church Ministries in Mountain Home, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office, but the church filed paperwork May 9 to remove him from the organization. A recording posted on the church’s YouTube channel showed Jones leading services in Mountain Home on April 8. He is also listed as the operations director of NXT Dream Center.

The allegations date back as far as 2014, and in three of the cases, Jones, now 58, was accused of using his position as a pastor to coerce or attempt to coerce the women into participating in sexual conduct as part of a “process” to heal themselves spiritually, according to the affidavit, written by Elmore County Detective Joshua Strong.

In one of the cases, Jones is accused of penetrating a woman’s vagina with his finger “after overcoming her will through duress” on several occasions, the affidavit said.

“Jones exercised a tremendous level of control over the lives of (the woman) and his congregants,” Strong wrote.

Jones was named Person of the Year in 2013 at the 24th annual Black History Banquet in Mountain Home, according to the Mountain Home News. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1986 and remained on active duty until he joined the Idaho Air National Guard in 1999.

Elmore County Sheriff Mike Hollinshead declined to comment since the investigation is ongoing, adding that the Elmore County Prosecutor’s Office would be the agency to release information going forward. He confirmed that anyone with additional information should call the Sheriff’s Office at 208-587-2100.

“The Elmore County Sheriff’s Office commends the courage of the victims who have come forward and assisted in this investigation,” the agency said in a news release.

Court records show Jones, who is Black, is facing two felonies at the moment: penetration by a foreign object and human sex trafficking. He has been in custody at the Elmore County Detention Center on a $1 million bond since his April 25 arrest, according to online jail records.

The listed felonies are for allegations involving just one of the victims, and it’s unclear whether he’ll face more charges. Prosecutor Shondi Lott declined to answer several questions sent by the Statesman, including one about possible future charges.

“As with every case, he’s presumed innocent until proven otherwise,” Lott wrote in an email.

‘She couldn’t understand why her pastor would treat her this way’

The investigation began in late January after the husband of one of the women disclosed allegations to the Sheriff’s Office, saying his wife told him she had been assaulted by Jones for years, Strong wrote in the affidavit. The man said he noticed “red flags” but became more suspicious of Jones’ behavior over the past six months because of the way Jones would “aggressively” hug women and conduct private Bible studies with them.

This behavior also carried over to the NXT Dream Center, which Jones operated, according to the affidavit.

The man’s wife told investigators that she began interacting with Jones in 2015 after Jones gave her a tour of the church. The pastor told her he could help her deal with past trauma and began to text her constantly, which the woman said felt like “a form of love bonding to gain her trust,” according to the affidavit.

The woman said Jones started asking her about masturbation because he said she needed to help her “past of sexual abuse by creating a safe space for her to explore her sexuality without her cheating on her husband,” the affidavit said.

Jones led the woman through a series of sequences to help her masturbate, the affidavit said. The woman said she wanted to be in Jones’ good graces and to trust the process he was putting her through, but it escalated to Jones physically touching her and penetrating her with his fingers, according to the affidavit.

The woman told authorities she didn’t want Jones to touch her, but she “thought it was necessary to remain in Jones’ good favor, and therefore God’s favor,” the affidavit said.

When asked by Elmore County Deputy Zachary Neville what was going through her mind at that time, the woman said she felt guilty, but she believed Jones and thought it was part of what he called “the process,” the affidavit said. This continued off and on until 2019, and then meetings with him became more frequent, the woman told authorities.

By September , the woman asked Jones to release her from the “spiritual process,” but she said Jones refused and began meeting her more, including more talking and praying in the sessions, the affidavit said. But most of the sessions still ended with Jones escorting her to the bathroom, where he’d sexually assault her, the affidavit said.

Strong wrote that Jones was “taking advantage” of the woman’s trauma to “overcome her resistance to sexual contact” by assaulting her in the bathroom, because she’d been abused as a child in a bathroom, according to the affidavit.

Court records show the woman told investigators that Jones told her participating in these sessions was necessary for her healing, and if she didn’t finish “the process,” she wouldn’t be able to achieve her spiritual calling – and that would open her up to spiritual attacks by demons.

He also told her that if she disclosed what she was going through to other people, she’d be forced to confess all of her sins in front of the church’s congregation, which the woman said would be “a highly embarrassing and distressing process” that could have damaged her career.

In her interview with investigators, the woman at times referred to the meetings with Jones as consensual because everything that happened was part of a healing process that Jones said was from God.

But she said she felt “disgusted” and was never attracted to him, the affidavit said.

She ended all contact with Jones last November.

“She couldn’t understand why her pastor would treat her this way,” according to the affidavit.

Another woman who worked at the NXT Dream Center for over a year told investigators that she thought she could trust Jones because he was a pastor, adding that she didn’t know the process for becoming a Christian. The woman said they’d have private Bible study together where he’d touch her legs, and then her breasts, and that eventually escalated to his touching her vagina, the affidavit said.

She “stated (Jones) was her first pastor and she did not know how a Christian becomes a regular Christian but thought she must have to go through this process so other Christians will welcome her at church,” Strong wrote in the affidavit.

Jones’ Boise-based private attorney, Jessica Bublitz, declined to comment on her client’s criminal case in an email to the Statesman.

Three other women allege being touched by Jones

The women who said they were victimized were responsible for recruiting members to the church or day care, and two of them were expected to recruit through flyers, public demonstrations and word of mouth, according to the affidavit. Two of them also were instructed to recruit women with traumatic and sexually traumatic backgrounds, the affidavit said, so that Jones could “heal” them.

One woman said that after she started attending Liberty Christian Fellowship Church, Jones asked her about her life, and she disclosed that she was sexually assaulted and was having relationship issues, the affidavit said. Jones then told her he would show her how to become a woman of God and be a good wife, and she agreed to start attending sessions with him.

Once she agreed, the woman said Jones gave her a detailed questionnaire to fill out that included highly personal questions, such as asking about her first sexual experience.

In a February interview with the Sheriff’s Office, that woman said she thought the questions were “really weird,” but she indicated a desire to have a successful marriage, and thought she needed to do what Jones asked of her, the affidavit said. Throughout the sessions, which began in November 2021, the woman said Jones would attempt to touch her, and she’d tell him she wasn’t comfortable.

He placed his hand up her shirt during one of the sessions and attempted to touch her breasts, but she said she blocked him, the affidavit said. The woman said she wasn’t OK with what was happening in the sessions and felt disgusted, but was having an “internal battle inside her mind.”

Another woman who worked at the NXT Dream Center in 2023 told deputies she received some late-night texts from Jones but ignored them. An incident with her daughter, who was attending the day care center, caused her to quit, the affidavit said. The woman said her daughter came home one day not wearing any underwear, and other staff members couldn’t explain what had happened.

Two other women disclosed in February interviews with deputies that Jones made them uncomfortable with his behavior. One said that when she was a teenager attending the church in 2014-15 with her family, Jones asked her whether she’d like to work at the Dream Center, the affidavit said. She started working there and told authorities that Jones was telling her how to act like a woman and save herself from boys.

Jones touched her inner thigh several times, and would tell her that he could help her become a woman, according to the court records. Looking back as an adult, the woman said Jones was “absolutely” touching her in a sexual way, the affidavit said.

According to the affidavit, the woman told deputies, “No girl her age should (ever) be alone with an adult like that.”