Jackson Gatlin, a former young adult and online community pastor at The Vineyard Church in Duluth, Minnesota, who was charged last year with sexually abusing five teenage girls, will likely spend at least 13 years in prison and have to register as a sex offender when his sentence is complete after he accepted a plea deal for one of the five charges Wednesday.
Gatlin, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault, while on four others he entered an Alford plea where he admits there is sufficient evidence to find him guilty during a trial but maintains his innocence, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
According to the complaints against Gatlin cited by Northern News Now, Gatlin met most of his victims at the church where his father, Michael Gatlin, was a senior pastor. His mother, Brenda Gatlin, also served in leadership at the church as well as at Vineyard USA. They both resigned from their roles at the church and Vineyard USA without cooperating with the investigation into their son.
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Some of his alleged victims who were in court to witness him plead guilty and give impact statements, said the assaults took place from 2007 to 2010, when he was in his early 20s.
Gatlin is alleged to have established close relationships with the girls who are now women when they were between 11 and 16. He allegedly groomed them with flirtations then sent sexual text messages and eventually took them to his bedroom at his parents’ home where he touched the victims or had them touch him. He also allegedly bound them and raped them. He is accused of laughing at one of the victims when she asked him to stop the abuse.
“Let me be clear, while I am relieved that justice is being served, this is not a win,” Hanna Haugh, one of the alleged victims, said at a press conference after the hearing. “Nobody wins here. What Jackson did to me cannot be undone.”
Gatlin is expected to be sentenced during separate hearings Nov. 25-26.
“For 16 years, I have been left with the exhausting task of fighting depression and anxiety that was never my burden to carry,” Vanessa Josephson, another alleged victim, said. “This pain has touched every part of my life, forcing me to confront overwhelming feelings of despair and battling thoughts of suicide.”
Jeanna Filkins, whose daughter Kasey was one of Gatlin’s victims, said her daughter killed herself as a result of the abuse she suffered.
“Kasey took her own life two years ago,” Filkins said. “In the final years of her life, she spoke often about the pain inflicted by Jackson Gatlin and the church.”
Spencer Kuvin, an attorney for all the victims, who has also represented victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby, said he was satisfied with Gatlin’s deal and noted that civil lawsuits will be filed against Gatlin, his parents, the Vineyard Church in Duluth and Vineyard USA.
“There’s a huge sense of satisfaction with the fact of the criminal plea today because the women at this point feel as though there is some accountability with respect to what occurred to them,” he said.
“The church should be a place where people feel secure — a sanctuary to find God, practice your faith and find support within your community,” he added. “Unfortunately, the church became a living hell for these young girls.”
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