Federal lawyers indicted a former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary employee of obstructing justice in a sexual misconduct case, the Department of Justice announced May 21.
Prosecutors charged Matthew Queen, a former professor and interim provost for the seminary, with falsifying records and notes related to a sexual misconduct case that led to an arrest of a student in January 2023. The case is part of a larger ongoing investigation over allegations of sexual abuse and how they are handled in the Southern Baptist Convention and its entities.
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth is one of six seminary schools operated by the Southern Baptist Convention.
Queen was called to make an initial court appearance before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, according to the announcement. He could not be reached for comment at time of publication.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement that Queen “attempted to interfere with a federal grand jury investigation by creating false notes in an attempt to corroborate his own lies.”
He added that the criminal obstruction charge should exemplify the seriousness of attempts by any individual to manipulate or interfere with a federal investigation.”
The U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI have been investigating allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct and how they’re handled within the Southern Baptist Convention and its entities since approximately 2022, according to the DOJ. The indictment is the first official acknowledgment by the DOJ of an investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention, according to Religion News Service.
A grand jury subpoena was issued to the seminary in approximately October 2022, according to the case documents. It required the school provide documents related to sexual abuse allegations against anyone employed or associated with the seminary.
About a month later, a seminary employee received a report regarding an allegation that then-seminary student Christian Flores had committed sexual abuse. The employee, named “Employee-1” in the case, brought the allegation to seminary campus police. The Department of Justice alleges that the seminary did not report the case to the U.S. attorney’s office as required by law.
Flores was arrested by the Burleson Police Department in January 2023, according to a seminary statement. He was also suspended from school, pending the outcome of the investigation.
Federal investigators allege that “Employee-1” was directed by a second employee to destroy or make the document describing the report “go away” during a meeting where Queen was present. During a May 2023 meeting between Queen and the FBI, Queen allegedly “falsely stated” that he had not heard one employee direct the other to destroy the document.
All employees involved with the allegations are no longer working at the seminary, the school wrote in a statement responding to the DOJ announcement. Queen was put on administrative leave and resigned as interim provost after the seminary learned about Queen’s actions in June 2023, school officials said.
“The seminary has repeatedly informed staff of their duty to fulfill the obligations of the subpoena,” the seminary wrote. “The seminary has and will continue to cooperate fully with the DOJ in its investigation of sexual abuse.”
Southern Baptists are the largest evangelical Protestant group in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center. Over 278,000 people in Tarrant County identify as Southern Baptist, according to 2020 data from the Association of Religion Data Archives.
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org or @marissaygreene. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.