Megachurch Pastor Zachary King Charged with Rape and Sexual Abuse of Minor

BY : Milton Quintanilla Crosswalk Headlines Contributor

Kentucky megachurch pastor Zachary, a pastor with “significant experience serving in youth ministry,” has been charged with the rape and sexual abuse of a minor. According to a press release from the office of the Attorney General of Kentucky, King, 47, was also charged with the unlawful use of electronics to engage in sexual acts with a minor. King is a pastor with “significant experience serving in youth ministry” at multiple megachurches, including LexCity Church in Lexington, Kentucky, where he preached about three months ago and also resigned as executive pastor.

King is currently being held in the Fayette County Detention Center and charged with first-and second-degree rape, as well as first-and second-degree sodomy, per a report from Lex18. During his arraignment on Tuesday, King’s attorney asked Judge John Tackett to set his bond at $50,000, which would allow him to pay $5,000 or 10% of the bond to be released. The judge, however, set the pastor’s bond at $250,000.

According to Lex18, King’s arrest citation revealed that he confessed in an interview with Coleman’s office that he “engaged in a sexual relationship with a minor over the course of the last year and a half.”

As reported by The Christian Post, the megachurch pastor also confessed that he had “sexual intercourse with the minor starting at age 15 in January 2023, continuing until April 2024.” He added he had “sexual intercourse in the minor’s home, at his residence, and at the church where he was a former pastor.”

In a Fox56 report, King confessed to communicating with the teenage girl through Snapchat and WhatsApp, including arranging meetups and receiving explicit photos. At one point, he even picked up the girl from her home and would drive up the road to have sex in his car.

Coleman’s office stated that anyone with further information regarding additional alleged criminal conduct by King can call the Department of Criminal Investigations Hotline at 866-524-3672 or report it at DC******@ky.gov.

According to King’s LinkedIn profile, King has significant experience serving in youth ministry, including at Craig Groeschel’s Life Church and Metropolitan Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, where he spent over eight years.

During a 2022 podcast called “Off the Record,” hosted by LexCity Church Lead Pastor Brian Classen, King admitted he was struggling in his 24-year-old marriage because he felt like his needs weren’t being met.

“At times, where I’m frustrated, and my needs are not being met, and [I’m] annoyed by things I shouldn’t be annoyed by is when my wife and I are disconnected, and we haven’t talked about it, and we just kind of let it sit,” King said at the time.

“We become really good co-parents and roommates in those seasons where it’s like, we just got to get the kids to the next place and get through the next day, almost like surviving until you can go to bed,” King continued.

“So things that would never really bother me, normally you are treating the symptoms, but you are not treating the root of the problem, and I just have to sit there and pray and ask the Lord to reveal the root — typically it’s me — my frustration is actually something I’m not doing, so it is really a not you, it’s me in this scenario.”