Minister gets 12 years in prison
By From staff reports
Published in News on September 5, 2014 1:46 PM
Tim Strickland
A former Mount Olive minister has been sentenced in federal court to more than 12 years in prison for possession of more than 124,000 images of child pornography.
Timothy Jack Strickland pleaded guilty in May to receipt of child pornography.
He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle to 151 months behind bars, to be followed by five years supervised probation.
Strickland, 42, was a former freelance minister at Jones Grove Pentecostal Church in Mount Olive. In 2013, FBI agents determined that he was in possession of child pornography.
A search of his home turned up a laptop computer and several other electronic devices that contained more than 124,000 images of child pornography.
According to the investigation, in March 2013, while attending training, a FBI Task Force officer engaged in a chat with Strickland. During the discussion, the agent observed that Strickland's directory contained child pornography files. That discovery led to the search warrant.
A federal grand jury returned a criminal indictment on Feb. 18, charging Strickland with 10 counts of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.
The possession of child pornography charge was dismissed at the time of sentencing as part of a plea agreement.
Strickland was not a pastor at a church at the time of his arrest. However, he was the head of the Mount Olive Ministerial Association and the executive director of Clergy2Clergy, a support group for other clergy.