Jones

ELKINS — A nearly three-hour preliminary hearing Tuesday afternoon for the former pastor of the Summit Church resulted in probable cause being found for the felony charge of soliciting a minor via computer.

The charge will now proceed to the grand jury, after Tuesday’s ruling by Randolph County Magistrate Michael Dyer.

Kevin Curtis Jones, 33, appeared in an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit in Randolph County Magistrate Court Tuesday afternoon, represented by attorney James Hawkins Jr.

Jones is also charged with one felony count of distribution and exhibiting of material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit activity. A hearing on that charge has been continued to a later date.

Jones is currently being held at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on two separate $50,000 cash-only bonds set by Magistrates Benjamin Shepler and Dyer.

The courtroom was full with approximately 20 people for Tuesday’s hearing, including family members of the alleged victim and a witness. Assistant Randolph County Prosecutor Leckta Poling represented the state.

Hawkins brought forward two motions, asking for a reduction in Jones’ bond and for a dismissal of the charge. Dyer denied both of Hawkins’ motions.

Poling also made a motion regarding Jones’ bond, asking for additions such as, if Jones were able to make bond, he should not be permitted to have contact with anyone under the age of 18, and that there should be restrictions to Jones’ access to electronic devices. Dyer approved Poling’s motion.

Dyer found probable cause after more than two-and-a-half hours of testimony from a witness, the alleged victim and the investigating officer, 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.

During the witness’s testimony, a member of the courtroom’s audience stood up and began to shout at Jones and Hawkins. The audience member was then taken out of the room by courtroom security. The audience member could be heard continuing to yell and shout as they were escorted out of the Randolph County Magistrate Court building by court security and officers with the West Virginia State Police and Elkins City Police, who were also present for the hearing.

There was an unusual level of security present for the hearing, with two Randolph County Court Security officers stationed outside on the sidewalk questioning people who approached the magistrate court building. No one was allowed to bring a cell phone into the building during the hearing. No photographs, and no video or audio recordings of the hearing were allowed to be made by media representatives covering the hearing.

According to the first criminal complaint against Jones, filed by Cale, on Oct. 1, 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 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.

On that same day, 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 was 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.

According to the second criminal complaint, also filed by Cale, on Oct. 1, Cale issued a search warrant for digital evidence from Jones’ cellular devices.

Cale allegedly located several images of a juvenile on Jones’ cellphone, the complaint states. The images depicted the alleged victim “in (their) underwear with (their) arms shrugged.” Cale writes that, in each of the known images of the alleged victim, the alleged victim was wearing different color underwear. He writes that one of the photos has a text overlay depicting, “Does this Match?”

Though the alleged victim is no longer a juvenile, the timestamps on the images allegedly found on Jones’ cellphone show that the alleged victim was under 18 years old when the photos were taken, the complaint states.

A separate photo was allegedly located on Jones’ cellphone of the alleged victim in a bathing suit, according to the complaint. The photo was formatted as a JPEG and was timestamped March 3, 2025 at 5:48 p.m.

Cale writes in the complaint that the next image after the swimsuit photo allegedly has the exact same timestamp and is believed to be a “computer-generated AI” image of the alleged victim “exposing” private parts.

Jones “was in possession of this image,” Cale wrote in the complaint.