The former president of a now-shuttered, anti-LGBTQ organization was arrested Tuesday for seeking sex from an undercover deputy posing as a 14-year-old boy, according to the Orange County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Alan Chambers, 54, of Winter Park, was booked in the Orange County Jail without bond on charges of soliciting a minor, transmitting material harmful to minors and unlawful use of a two-way communications device. An affidavit obtained from the Sheriff\u2019s Office describes lewd text messages exchanged with the undercover deputy through the social media app Snapchat and later through text-messaging service Telegram.<\/p>\n
Chambers led a \u201cpray-away-the-gay\u201d ministry until 2013 when he shut it down and apologized to those he said had been hurt by the organization.<\/p>\n
From Feb. 10 through May 4, Chambers is accused of repeatedly seeking to meet with a teenager for sex, according to the affidavit. On Tuesday morning, detectives said they interviewed Chambers during a traffic stop on Aloma Avenue and Strathy Lane, where he confirmed the accounts he was messaging from were his but stopped the interview when he was asked about the conversations.<\/p>\n
A Sheriff\u2019s Office spokesperson said investigators are working to find out whether there are other victims. Chambers is slated to appear before a judge on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Chambers once helmed the Orlando-based Exodus International as part of the so-called \u201cex-gay\u201d movement and was a fervent proponent of conversion therapy for LGBTQ people. He also served as associate pastor at Calvary Assembly of God in Orlando until 2005.<\/p>\n
He previously said he reached out to the ministry at 19 as he sought to \u201cfeel about women the way I felt about men.\u201d<\/p>\n
Exodus International closed its doors in 2013 after 37 years and 260 affiliated ministries across North America, with Chambers, a father of two, apologizing to the LGBTQ community for years of \u201cundue suffering and at the hands of the organization and the [Christian] church as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former president of a now-shuttered, anti-LGBTQ organization was arrested Tuesday for seeking sex from an undercover deputy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-277661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}