By John Balch
News-Leader Staff
A former Pike County preacher and foster parent who was arrested last week on 100 charges of child pornography made his first court Monday with a Nov. 4 return date set for formal arraignment.
As of Tuesday morning, no charges have been filed against James Vincent Henry, 43, a former preacher at Crossroads Assembly of God Church in Delight. No plea was entered Monday and Henry remains in custody at the Pike County jail where he is being held on $50,000 bond.
Henry was arrested and booked in the county jail the night of Oct. 15 on suspicion of 100 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child.
According to an affidavit prepared by Special Agent Christopher Harper with the Arkansas State Police, an investigation involving Henry began in August when Harper was assigned two “cyber tip” reports from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The reports involved the uploading of CSAM (child sexual abuse material) using Kik and Snapchat messaging applications.
The material was allegedly uploaded from an account belonging to Henry and his official church email address was used.
The state police investigator was able to determine that the one IP addresses involved in the CSAM was assigned to Henry at his Cherry Street home in Delight and that another address was assigned to Crossroads Assembly of God Church.
A residential search warrant was executed at the Henry home on Sept. 25 and numerous electronic devices were seized. Henry was then escorted to the church where more electronic devices were seized.
An extraction of one of Henry’s phone showed his phone number was allegedly associated with the CSAM and several photos were recovered. Another phone, owned by Henry’s wife, Brittney, was also extracted and showed she made numerous calls and sent numerous messages to and from the phone number at the center of the investigation. Henry’s phone number was labeled “vacation phone” in his wife’s phone contacts.
Brittney Henry has not been arrested or charged in connection with this case.
According to the Delight church’s website, Henry is original from Dumas and he has served as youth pastor at Assembly of God churches in Lacey, McGehee and Mountain Pine, as well as Newsong Church in Centerton, where served on the “media team.”
The website also states the Henrys served as foster parents for New Beginnings Children’s Home in Centerton and fostered 76 children in four years before they moved to the “transitional living program for young ladies 18-25” for two years.
