{"id":440562,"date":"2025-12-11T17:30:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T17:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/440562\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T17:30:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T17:30:32","slug":"man-linked-to-jacksonville-church-sentenced-to-20-years-after-pleading-guilty-to-capital-sexual-battery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/440562\/","title":{"rendered":"Man linked to Jacksonville church sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to capital sexual battery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><strong>DUVAL COUNTY, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 A man\u00a0linked to a now-closed Jacksonville church\u00a0was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to capital sexual battery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Jerome Teschendorf, 71, was the third defendant in an investigation into the Assembly of the Body of Christ Church on Old Kings Road. The church\u2019s former pastor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2022\/03\/10\/pastor-of-jacksonville-church-arrested-after-raid-charged-with-capital-sexual-battery-sources\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2022\/03\/10\/pastor-of-jacksonville-church-arrested-after-raid-charged-with-capital-sexual-battery-sources\/\">Paul Dyal, had pleaded guilty to child abuse<\/a>, and Vernon Williamson, another man linked to the church, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for capital sexual battery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><b>RELATED | <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2022\/03\/23\/it-should-never-happen-women-who-say-they-survived-abuse-at-jacksonville-church-return-to-campus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2022\/03\/23\/it-should-never-happen-women-who-say-they-survived-abuse-at-jacksonville-church-return-to-campus\/\"><b>\u2018It should never happen\u2019: Women who say they survived abuse at Jacksonville church return to campus<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">JSO said the investigation began in September 2020 after it received a tip regarding possible sexual abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cThe investigation revealed both long-term sexual and physical abuse of minors in the church spanning a period of over thirty years,\u201d the Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/local\/2022\/03\/14\/it-became-our-normal-8-women-say-they-endured-mental-physical-abuse-from-jacksonville-church-leaders\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eight women shared their stories with News4JAX<\/a>, saying they are survivors of mental, physical and emotional abuse from people at the Jacksonville Assembly of the Body of Christ Church.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">JSO said that through the course of the investigation, police \u201chave identified and spoken to numerous victims and witnesses.\u201d As a result, JSO said it believes there may be additional suspects. <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 A man\u00a0linked to a now-closed Jacksonville church\u00a0was sentenced to 20 years in prison on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":440563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,203353,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-440562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-jerome-teschendorf","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115702125174008536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}