La preacher pleads guilty to 4 of 473 sex crimes

Published 11:06 pm Tuesday, October 4, 2011

ALEXANDRIA (AP) — A Tioga preacher and psychiatric hospital social worker charged with 473 counts of sex crimes against a young female relative has pleaded guilty to four of those charges.

Holland Farrell McMorris, 64, pleaded guilty on Monday to aggravated incest, attempted aggravated rape, molestation of a juvenile and sexual battery, The Town Talk reported.

State District Judge Thomas Yeager sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The victim’s family agreed to the sentence, Assistant District Attorney Monique Metoyer said.

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With credit for 16 months spent in jail since his arrest in June 2010, McMorris could get out when he’s 88 years old.

He told Yeager he was a social worker at Central Louisiana State Hospital — a state psychiatric hospital in Pineville. He also was the minister at Paradise Baptist Church,

Prosecutors say he abused the girl from the time she was 11 until she was 14, sneaking into her bedroom while her siblings were asleep.

She is now 16 and has undergone counseling.

“You ruined her. You ruined her,” her mother told McMorris in court.

“She’ll never recover from this,” the girl’s mother said during the victim’s impact statement phase of sentencing.

She said he took advantage of his position in the family and in the Baptist church.

McMorris did not apologize.

Metoyer said the victim’s family was “quite generous” in agreeing to the 25-year plea deal