Robert Shiflet: Texas pastor convicted of sexually abusing 2 minor girls released early for good behavior
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DALLAS, TEXAS: Robert Shiflet, a Texas youth pastor who is linked to the sexual abuse of at least 14 girls at Denton Bible Church, has been released early from prison for good behavior.
The former youth minister served just 25 months in federal prison for a 33-month sentence he received in June 2021 as part of a plea deal for sexually abusing two underage girls repeatedly, according to a report by FoxNews Dallas.
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Victims not informed of Shiflet's release
Shiflet was released from prison on January 11 but his victims claim they were not notified about of his release. Instead, they received an email notification from the Justice Department more than six weeks after he was set free stating that advance notice was not possible because it was immediate and/or unexpected, according to a report by New York Post. The pastor is now living in Weatherford, Texas, where he must register as a sex offender for life.
Shiflet sexually abused at least 14 girls
One of the crimes Shiflet was convicted of began in 1996 when he met a 14-year-old girl at Denton Bible Church in Dallas. Later in 1997, he led an eighth-grade camping trip to the Buffalo National River in Arkansas where he was able to isolate and sexually assault her.
In 2005, two victims came forward and told a counselor at Denton Bible about the abuse by Shiflet while they were minors. But instead of Denton Bible reporting this to authorities, church leaders confronted Shiflet themselves and he admitted to the crimes. Both girls were 19 years old at the time. The law, at that time, did not require church leaders to report the abuse.
One of his victims told Fox News Dallas about the abuse she faced. "He slowly treated me more like a girlfriend. As a young teenager, I knew something didn’t feel right. I knew that I felt uncomfortable. And when he would do different things and touch me in ways that were inappropriate, he would ask me if it was okay. And if I said yes, he would keep doing them. And if I said no, he would ice me out emotionally."
In addition to the sexual abuse cases that have come up, the Denton Bible Church where Shiflet worked also linked him to at least a dozen other cases of abuse after conducting its own investigation and working with law enforcement. Head pastor Tommy Nelson claimed he learned girls in the church’s care were being abused in 2015, but an investigation found that the church stripped Shiflet of his ordination 10 years earlier.