A former children’s ministry volunteer at a California church has been given a severe sentence of over 120 years to life in prison. This individual was found guilty of molesting young girls as young as 6 and possessing a large number of pornographic images of children.
A ministry volunteer was found to have taken inappropriate images of a minor they had met through the church.
Last week, the office of Orange County District Attorney Tood Spitzer announced that Todd Christian Hartman, a resident of Newport Beach, has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Hartman was convicted on multiple felony charges, including engaging in lewd acts with a minor.
His sentence is 120 years to life, with an additional four years and four months.
Hartman, 41, has been found guilty of multiple serious charges, including sexual offenses against a child and possession of child pornography.
The man had volunteered for the children’s ministry at the Vineyard Church in Anaheim before he was convicted. Church leaders grew increasingly alarmed by Hartman’s repeated actions of pulling children onto his lap, prompting them to modify his responsibilities, as reported by the district attorney’s office.
In 2016, Hartman reached out to the father of two of his victims and confessed to repeatedly molesting his daughters while volunteering with the children’s ministry, according to the district attorney’s office. Hartman engaged in sexual abuse with one of the girls at a young age, and he also molested her sister while taking inappropriate photos of her.
The church volunteer was found guilty of sexually assaulting two additional girls, aged 12 and 14, by groping and fondling their genitals. In 2009, Hartman committed a disturbing act during a sleepover at a house in Fullerton that belonged to a relative of the girls.
In 2015, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed that Hartman was anticipated to appear in federal court. He had been charged with using the internet to download and distribute sexually explicit images of minors. It is believed that the incidents took place in 2014.
Hartman was apprehended by multiple law enforcement agencies, including ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, and Newport Beach Police detectives.
Source: Christian Post