Thursday, July 30th 2015, 6:38 pm
New details are emerging surrounding the arrest of a metro pastor. Brian Burchfield is accused of soliciting sexual conduct with minors who were members at his former church, and detectives say he admitted to most of the allegations against him.
The now former pastor was arrested Wednesday, after a mother of one of the victims discovered inappropriate texts on her son's phone. There are a total of four victims who are all teen boys ranging from 14 to 17 years old.
For about eight years, Burchfield was the youth minister at the Immanuel Baptist Church in Shawnee. About a year ago, he left and took a new position in Oklahoma City at the Quail Springs Baptist Church. But court documents state he was still communicating with teen boys from the Shawnee youth group, and it was sexual in nature.
7/30/15 Related Story: Former OKC Youth Pastor Arrested On Suspicion Of Sex Crimes
“There was some instants where they had some times together as a group with specific boys out of that group,” Shawnee Police Sgt. Ethan Rieves said. “There were some questionable things that went on.”
Those questionable things included a "Man Journey Retreat" Burchfield invited the boys to attend. He took the teens to his in-laws house in Eufaula and came up with the idea that he and the boys would "go skinny dipping on two separate occasions."
Documents state during another incident, Burchfield asked one of the victims to come to his house to mow the lawn. Then, Burchfield dared him to "get naked and jump in the pool" and "streak the yard". Both of which the boy said he "did for $20."
Investigators say Burchfield asked the boys to send him pictures of their private areas.
Despite this, investigators don't believe anything physical happened between Burchfield and the boys. However, they do admit he was grooming them for something more.
“At this time it doesn’t look like there was any physical sexual contact,” Rieves said.
Burchfield turned himself and bonded out of jail Thursday afternoon.
“Formal charges haven’t even been filed yet,” his attorney Matthew Peters said. “So we’re basically at a waiting game with the DA’s office to see what they file if anything.”
Burchfield was arraigned before a judge Thursday. Detectives do not believe there are any more victims.
July 30th, 2015
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