A former youth pastor has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple child sex abuse crimes. Marvin Scales, 53, of Waxahachie, Texas, is not eligible for parole and will be required to serve the entire sentence.
Editor’s note: This article refers to reports of child sex abuse, which some readers might find triggering and/or disturbing.
Authorities began investigating Scales in August 2023 after Waxahachie police were alerted that a 14-year-old girl was in labor and Scales was “overly involved” in her delivery, according to Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
A DNA test confirmed that Scales was the father of the child. Soon, other underaged victims came forward, saying they attended the church where Scales was the youth pastor.
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Authorities have not released the name or location of the church in order to maintain the anonymity of the abuse survivors.
Prosecutors said that Scales would frequently take students on overnight trips and host sleepovers at his home. Victims told investigators that Scales would frequently have sex with them during these overnight stays.
Scales also had an “extensive security system installed at his home,” according to NBC-DFW. Several sexual assaults were recorded via the security system, and Scales kept the recordings.
The discovery of the security footage enabled investigators to uncover more assaults. However, prosecutors were not able to identify all the victims in the footage.
Scales was already a registered sex offender in Texas. Authorities said that a simple background check would have alerted church leaders to his past crimes against children, which include indecency with a child by contact and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
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Scales was convicted of these crimes in 1998 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The victims were an 11-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl.
