Ministry leader accused of sex crimes
Published 10:08 pm Thursday, January 7, 2016
The leader of a Suffolk ministry is accused of having a sexual relationship with a teenage girl during the spring and summer of 2015.
Anthony Joseph McClain, 51, was indicted in November on 15 counts of aggravated sexual battery, five counts of indecent liberties with a child and six counts of incest.
Anthony McClain is listed as the pastor of Something God Made Ministries Community Center Inc., with an address of 145 Kings Highway, which was McClain’s home. McClain no longer lives at that address.
In a statement to a police detective on Aug. 4, McClain at first denied the allegations, according to a transcript of the statement filed in Suffolk Circuit Court. But later that same day, he called police and said he wanted to talk again.
That’s when he confessed, according to court records, saying that he thought the first conversation was about rape, which he said never happened.
“I wanted to say that I did have sexual relationships with her, but it was consensual and she initiated it,” McClain told a detective. He said the teen had been “bothering” him for two years.
“I guess I was just vulnerable when it happened,” he said, according to the court papers. “She told me to do it and I did it, sir. She never told me stop. She was the one told me to do it and I did it.”
“She did all of this,” he continued. “It was not my will. She did it. She told me to do it.”
The victim was between the ages of 13 and 17 when the incidents happened and was known to McClain, according to the court papers.
According to a lab report filed in Suffolk Circuit Court, McClain could not be eliminated as a contributor of biological material found during an examination of the victim. The probability of someone else matching the DNA profile is “greater than 1 in 7.2 billion,” the current approximate human population, according to the lab report.
Nobody responded to an email sent to the address listed on the church website. The voice mail attached to a phone number on the church website was full.
According to the ministry website, www.sgmmcc.org, the ministry runs a variety of programs including a youth after school program, pantry, community biker’s club, computer literacy training, a career closet for those in need of professional clothes for a job interview, and more.