How many church leaders where arrested for sex crimes in 2025?
Executive summary
Available reporting does not produce a definitive, nationwide tally of church leaders arrested for sex crimes in 2025, but the sources provided document at least nine high‑profile church leaders who were arrested, indicted or criminally charged that year — including the indictment of megachurch founder Robert Morris and a multi‑defendant federal case tied to La Luz del Mundo leadership — and several other clergy facing criminal charges or civil suits [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].
1. Known indictments and arrests catalogued in reporting
Reporting in 2025 captured multiple separate criminal actions: Robert Morris, founding pastor of Gateway Church, was indicted on multiple counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child and resigned in 2024 before the March 2025 indictment that became public [1] [2], a Queens pastor Daniel Butler was charged with first‑degree rape and abuse of a 10‑year‑old [2], and Garrett Biggerstaff was arrested for allegedly grooming and exploiting two minors [2], while a sweeping federal indictment unsealed in September 2025 charged six members of La Luz del Mundo’s leadership (including Naasón Joaquín García) in a racketeering enterprise that prosecutors say facilitated systemic sexual abuse — several of those defendants were taken into custody or otherwise identified in the unsealed indictment [3] [4] [5].
2. Counting what the sources actually document — a conservative minimum
If one aggregates the individuals documented in these sources, the conservative minimum supported by the documents is nine church leaders (Robert Morris; Daniel Butler; Garrett Biggerstaff; and the six defendants named in the La Luz del Mundo unsealed indictment) — this is a floor based only on the specific arrests/indictments cited in the supplied reporting, not a comprehensive national count [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
3. Why a single national number is unavailable from these sources
The provided reporting is fragmentary and focused on high‑profile examples and particular investigations; it does not offer an authoritative, aggregated dataset for all U.S. arrests of clergy or religious leaders in 2025. Several items in the collection are civil lawsuits (for example, the McClurkin suit reported by NBC) or historical summaries rather than criminal arrest tallies, and many dioceses, denominations and local law‑enforcement agencies do not publish centralized annual counts in a way these sources can capture [6] [7] [8].
4. Distinguishing charges, indictments, lawsuits and convictions
The sources mix criminal indictments and arrests (e.g., Morris’s indictment and the La Luz del Mundo unsealing) with charges and civil claims; not every allegation becomes an arrest, and not every arrested person is convicted — a critical distinction when compiling counts and assessing trends [1] [2] [3] [6].
5. Alternative viewpoint and institutional response
Institutional and legal responses vary: some churches conducted internal probes and saw leaders step down or be removed (Gateway’s internal investigation and staff departures are documented), survivors’ advocates press for transparency and immediate accountability, and large denominational investigations (like the Houston Chronicle/San Antonio Express‑News reporting on Southern Baptist leaders) underscore that many cases are part of longer, systemic patterns that resist simple annual tabulation [1] [8].
6. Bottom line for readers trying to answer “how many”
Based on the supplied reporting, at least nine church leaders were criminally charged, arrested or indicted in incidents covered by these stories in 2025 — but that figure is explicitly a lower bound drawn from the specific cases the sources document, not a complete national count; the sources do not provide a comprehensive database of every clergy arrest in 2025, so any single national total would require broader data collection from law‑enforcement, court dockets and denominational records beyond the provided reporting [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].