A South Florida pastor accused of giving alcohol to a 15-year-old girl before sexually assaulting her was arrested in Texas on Friday, four days after fleeing the state, authorities said.
Monte LaVelle Chitty, 62, reportedly approached a Texas church group working with unhoused individuals. A member of the church then contacted local police.
Chitty — who authorities say is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Marathon, in the Florida Keys — was believed to be on the run since Monday after failing to show up to a court hearing.
He was arrested in Woodville, Tex., some 1,300 miles northwest of Marathon, around 5 p.m. on Friday. He is currently being held on a $1.3 million bond.
State and local police, as well as the U.S. Marshals Service, were “instrumental” in his arrest, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, in South Florida, said in a news release.
Florida authorities were first notified of the alleged abuse in March after an anonymous caller reported “overhearing the girl as she told an adult she was with she’d been raped.”
When deputies located the victim, she said Chitty had given her alcohol, which she thinks might have been “spiked” because she immediately passed out after drinking it.
She woke up to Chitty sexually molesting her, officials said.
Further investigation revealed that in text messages found on both his and the victim’s phones, Chitty “made reference to having sexual relations with the girl while she was impaired.”
As officers attempted to locate the victim, Chitty called the sheriff’s office to say that a young girl had passed out on a couch in the library of the church.
He told authorities he was worried he was going to be accused of something and wanted to tell his version of the story — that he simply helped the teen lie down on the couch but didn’t touch her after that.
Chitty, who was also a registered volunteer with the sheriff’s office, was arrested in March and charged with sexual assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
He was later released on a $75,000 bond. After skipping his court hearing on Monday, Chitty was seen in a white van with out-of-state plates, prosecutors said.
The First Baptist Church in Marathon, which believes that Christians should oppose “all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography,” did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
