The Woodlawn church pastor convicted of sexually abusing a teenager was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday, sending the courtroom full of his followers into fits of crying and screaming.
“He was in a position of extreme trust … and to violate that trust is a very serious thing,” said Howard Circuit Judge Diane Leasure to the courtroom, packed with members of the Redemption Christian Fellowship Inc., where Gerald Fitroy Griffith was a pastor.
Two tour buses and four vans broughtabout 150 members of the congregation to support Griffith, whom they call “Apostle.”
“I?ve been going through a lot with this, because a lot of people say I?m lying and a lot of people doubt he would do something like this because he?s a holy man,” said the victim, who will not be identified, during the hearing.
Griffith, 41, also was sentenced to five years of supervised probation following his incarceration. He is not allowed to contact the victim or have unsupervised contact with any minor.
Griffith will have to register as a child sex offender, undergo a psychosexual evaluation and enter a sex offender treatment program.
The victim has been ostracized from his church since he came forward with the allegations that Griffith sexually abused him when he was 14, said Assistant State?s Attorney Lisa Broten, who asked the judge to sentence Griffith to 25 years in prison for each of the two counts of sexual abuse.
Last year, the same victim accused the church?s Deacon Gary Warfield of sexual abuse, but Warfield was found not guilty, said Joseph Murtha, a defense lawyer in that case.
The victim, now 18, is one of five youth in Baltimore County to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse by Griffith.
The pretrial motions for the other allegations are set for mid-August.
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