Jones

ELKINS – The pastor of the Summit Church in Elkins was arrested Wednesday and faces a felony charge after allegedly soliciting a minor.

Kevin Curtis Jones, 33, is charged with one count of soliciting a minor via computer, a felony. He is currently being held at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on a $50,000 cash-only bond set by Randolph County Magistrate Benjamin Shepler.

According to the criminal complaint, filed by Deputy and Task Force Officer D.A. Cale with the Barbour County Sheriff’s Office and the Mountain Region Drug And Violent Crime Task Force, on Wednesday, Cale assisted Cpl. C. Parks, also with the Barbour Sheriff’s Office, with a soliciting investigation involving Jones.

Parks told Cale he was “investigating Pastor Kevin Jones for soliciting a minor with a computer,” the complaint states. The alleged victim, who is no longer a juvenile, was an attending member of the Summit Church in Elkins. Cale applied for a search warrant in Randolph County to seize relevant cellular devices, flash drives, storage devices, computers, etc.

Also on Wednesday, Cale located Jones in an RV at the Smokey Bottom Camp Ground, off Route 33, the complaint states. A “large amount” of cellular devices and storage devices were seized. Cale also made contact with the alleged victim, who came out of the RV to speak with him.

The alleged victim stated that Jones was their pastor and that they recalled an event where they and other juveniles went to Jones’ house in Randolph County around Christmas of 2023, the complaint states. The alleged victim told Cale that Jones began communicating with them over the phone about being in a “clandestine relationship” with the alleged victim once they turned 18.

According to the complaint, Jones “is the pastor of Summit Church… where the (alleged) victim attends, making (Jones) a person of trust over the victim.” Cale writes that he explained to the alleged victim what solicitation of a minor via computer was defined as under West Virginia State Code, and then asked the alleged victim if they thought Jones had solicited them. The alleged victim said, “Yes.”

“It is evident that Pastor Kevin Jones used a communication device to contact the victim to solicit, entice, seduce or lure (them) into a clandestine relationship while he remained married and was a person of trust,” Cale writes in the complaint.