{"id":304485,"date":"2026-05-07T16:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/304485\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T16:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T16:20:09","slug":"pastor-sentenced-for-sex-crime-the-oakland-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/304485\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor sentenced for sex crime \u2013 The Oakland Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sentencing for a sex crime was handed down Thursday morning to a long-time pastor of a Pontiac church.<\/p>\n

At the hearing in Oakland County Circuit Court, Judge Mary Ellen Brennan sentenced Reverend Douglas Jones, 83, to one day in jail with credit for one day served and two years probation for attempted fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. Jones, of West Bloomfield,\u00a0 pleaded no contest to the charge in March. The crime he was initially charged with, fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, was dismissed.<\/p>\n

As previously reported, Jones\u2019 attorney, Cyril Hall, told The Oakland Press that the plea was\u00a0 \u201cthe easiest way to resolve the controversy\u201d and not cause more \u201cinjury to all people involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"man\"Rev. Douglas Jones (courtesy photo)<\/p>\n

Hall said the charge stemmed from the alleged victim reporting that Jones \u201chad touched her back and that his hand may have accidentally touched her buttocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones, senior pastor of Welcome Missionary Baptist Church in Pontiac since 1989, was arrested last year. Investigators said the crime occurred on Aug. 26, 2024 in Rochester Hills.<\/p>\n

Jones is well-known for his ministries and other community involvement throughout Pontiac \u2014 including as a board member of the Oakland County Health Network, founder of the Greater Pontiac Community Coalition, and more. In February 2025, the Detroit Red Wings recognized him as a \u201cBlack History Month Game Changers honoree.\u201d<\/p>\n

White Lake woman sentenced for embezzling $600K-plus from grandmother<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sentencing for a sex crime was handed down Thursday morning to a long-time pastor of a Pontiac church.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[128364,45503,128366,143,25791,145,144,128365,2897],"class_list":["post-304485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-attempted-csc","tag-criminal-sexual-conduct","tag-judge-mary-ellen-brennan","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county-circuit-court","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pastor-douglas-jones","tag-sentencing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}