Minister Admits Sexually Abusing Children

G R E E N W O O D, S.C., Jan. 29, 2001 -- A minister and former elementary schoolaide who videotaped himself molesting children pleaded guiltytoday to sexually abusing nearly two dozen youngsters and wassentenced to 60 years in prison.

The Rev. Fernando Garcia, 42, pleaded guilty to 47 counts. Headmitted molesting the 23 victims ages 5 and 13 at his churchoffice and at the school.

After his plea, the Baptist minister stared at the courtroomfloor while the mother of two of the victims, boys 10 and 12 at thetime, called Garcia "this evil incarnate" and said her familywould never be the same.

Garcia, who grew up in Mexico, said that as a boy he was abusedby a Roman Catholic priest.

"Your kids need special counseling. I don't know what I can doto help," he said. "What you are seeing here is the result ofsomebody who never took the chance to be counseled."

Caught on Tape

Garcia was recommended strongly from his previous ministry inCarson City, Nev., when he came to South Carolina in 1998 to work with theAbbeville Baptist Association. The umbrella group for localchurches was looking for a minister to serve the growing Hispanicpopulation in this textile town of 20,000 people.

He held Sunday night services in Spanish at a local church andperformed counseling.

"He could speak English and Spanish. He was gifted in music andpreaching," Wallace Hughes, the Baptist association's director ofmissions, said last summer.

Police said that in Garcia's office at the Baptist association,they found 26 videotapes of him sexually abusing children. Thetapes came to light after an 8-year-old boy told his mother in Maythat he had been molested by Garcia.

Police also found a list of 125 names indicating Garcia may havemolested more children and young men, some of them in two otherstates.

Garcia's wife, Leticia, sobbed as she spoke in Spanish on herhusband's behalf. "This is a different Fernando than what I usedto know," she said through an interpreter.