A woman indicted by a DeSoto County grand jury for sexual battery of a child pleaded guilty
Published by RawNews1st
Lindsey Whiteside, a former youth minister and basketball coach at Getwell Church in Hernando, Miss., was indicted on one count of sexual battery of a child in December 2024. She was arrested in November 2024 on a sexual battery charge.
Judge Andrew Howorth, a retired Circuit Judge, sentenced her to 10 years under court supervision with no contact with the victim or her family. The first three years, she will be on house arrest.
The remaining seven years, she will be suspended on condition of house arrest, followed by five years of supervised probation and two years of unsupervised probation.
District Attorney Matthew Barton held a press conference Monday afternoon to discuss more about the case.
“I want you to know that I deceived you. You guys didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry that I didn’t bring honor and respect to your family,” said Lindsey Whiteside.
Prosecutors say the victim was 14 and 15 years old at the time, and the sexual abuse happened from May 2024 to November 2024.
“We had 64,000 pages of printed out text messages. We had handwritten letters that were on church stationery,” said Barton.
Pam Pegram, a family member of the victim, said during the press conference that the evidence presented on Monday was vile, evil, and quite honestly just shocking.
He said Whiteside was in charge of assigning where children should sit and sleep on youth church trips, and she would take advantage of her position as a youth minister.
