Former youth minister pleads guilty to having sex with minors
By Iva Butler | (ivab@thedailytimes.com)
Former youth minister Laura Lee Click Salazar, 40,
Maryville, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Blount County Circuit Court to 15 counts of having sex with
three minors and was sentenced to 12 years.
Under a plea agreement, Salazar
was sentenced by Judge David R. Duggan to serve one year in prison and the remainder with
community corrections. She is required to be listed on the sex offender registry for her
life.
Salazar and her husband, Michael Salazar, were the youth
ministers at the Lord’s Disciples Ministries for Whosoever Will, 2002 Old Knoxville Pike,
Maryville, during the time of the occurrences.
Michael Salazar pleaded
guilty Sept. 17, 2010, to 10 counts of unlawful sexual contact and statutory rape of five girls
and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Between February and June 2008
Laura Salazar pled to seven counts of statutory rape and seven counts of sexual battery by a
person of trust with supervisory or disciplinary power over the girls by virtue of being a youth
leader and one count of conspiracy with her husband to commit statutory rape and battery on three
girls, then 14.
After the sentencing, Salazar was immediately taken into
custody to begin serving her sentence.
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