The prosecution of former Mississippi youth minister Lindsey Whiteside, who is accused of sexually abusing a minor under her care, continues to divide her community as United States Attorney Clay Joyner filed an emergency motion to review and revoke a federal judge’s order to release her from custody pending trial.
Despite facing the possibility of spending the rest of her life in prison for two counts of transportation of a minor across state lines for illicit sexual purposes and one count of enticement of a child, a federal magistrate judge ordered Whiteside released on a $60,000 unsecured bond Tuesday after her schoolteacher mother, Gale Whiteside, testified that she was not a danger to society, according to court documents review by The Christian Post.
Whiteside, who was recently sentenced in a controversial decision to just three years of house arrest and seven years of probation for child sexual abuse in DeSoto County, was rearrested on the latest charges by federal authorities last week.
The new arrest followed Special Circuit Court Judge Andrew Howorth’s recusal from the case amid public backlash and a strong rebuke from the District Attorney for DeSoto, Matthew Barton, over the light sentence Whiteside received.
During Whiteside’s fiery detention hearing for the new charges in federal court in Oxford, her defense attorney, Tony Farese, argued that her prosecution is “retaliatory.”
“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? It’s pretty obvious what was said. It’s a retaliatory prosecution, and I’m not afraid to speak the truth,” Farese argued, according to Fox 13, while accusing Barton of sensationalizing the case.
“It’s totally un-American. And it’s exactly what I argued to the court. Sad times. And I’ve never seen that happen in the Northern District of Mississippi, and it shouldn’t happen, but here we are,” Farese added.
Whiteside was ordered to 24/7 house arrest, where she would only be allowed to leave her mother’s house to be in the yard or attend church and doctor’s appointments before her trial on Dec. 8. She is also required to find a new home by Nov. 16 because her mother’s house is near a local school. If she remains there, she will be out of compliance with the requirements of her status as a registered sex offender. Whiteside is also required to have all her electronic devices inspected, take random drug tests, is prohibited from having drugs and guns and can’t consume excessive alcohol.
In his emergency motion seeking to review and revoke the judge’s order, Joyner maintained that Whiteside should be detained pending trial because “the charged offenses [she is facing] are crimes of violence and involve a minor victim.”
“On account of the charges WHITESIDE faces for this exploitative conduct, the law presumes that she should be detained. The United States hereby seeks review and revocation of the Magistrate Judge’s release order pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 3145,” Joyner argued Wednesday. “The United States requests that this Court uphold the presumption, find LINDSEY ALDY WHITESIDE to be a danger to other persons and the community by clear and convincing evidence, and order the defendant detained pending trial.”
Joyner stated that while Whiteside served as the 17-year-old victim’s youth pastor at Getwell Church in Hernando in the summer of 2024, she sexually abused her on two separate church trips to Atlanta and Tennessee.
“The minor disclosed that on each of those trips, as well as several times a week during their association, there was vaginal and oral penetration by WHITESIDE,” Joyner noted. “The minor disclosed, and text messages between the two corroborate, that decisions were made by WHITESIDE to isolate the minor from the church group and her family in order to perform the sexual conduct on those trips.”
Joyner argued that even though Whiteside’s mother claims her daughter is not a danger to society, she was able to fool even her and the church for a while in order to carry out the alleged crimes, which were first reported to authorities by the church.
“WHITESIDE groomed the minor and her family over an extended period of time in order to gain their trust. Once the grooming was complete, WHITESIDE was able to convince the family to allow WHITESIDE to take their minor child across state lines in order to sexually abuse her,” Joyner argued.
“WHITESIDE leaned on her role within the church to gain access to the child, open lines of communication to the family and the child, transport the child interstate, and sexually abuse the child. The family of the victim had no idea this conduct was occurring, and WHITESIDE’s own mother had no idea this conduct was occurring,” he explained. “This conduct shows that WHITESIDE is a danger to the community in that she built trust between the victim’s family and herself in order to facilitate the abuse and showed no outward signs to her own mother that she was engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor.”
Despite the restrictions placed on Whiteside for her release, Joyner argued that they are “insufficient to ameliorate the risk of danger” she poses to the public, given how much her case has divided the community. District Attorney Barton had earlier called for the resignation of a local school official who had sent a letter of support for Whiteside.
“As noted in the hearing, the exposure of WHITESIDE’s conduct has been extremely divisive in the community. WHITESIDE’s mother testified that many families are supporting her. One family in particular has small children that WHITESIDE has had access to since her conviction. In fact, the Mississippi Department of Corrections ankle monitor location data shows that she visited the house of these supporters immediately after signing up for the sex offender registry,” Joyner argued.
“WHITESIDE’s mother admitted they were at the house to care for the sick child because of their close relationship with that family. This is a limit of any GPS monitoring system. Officers watching those coordinates often do not know who lives in a house at which the GPS pings, the supportive families are not cognizant of the danger they are putting their small children in, and officer [s] would be limited to reactive measures after any inappropriate conduct.”
Joyner said that the court needs to consider that each charge Whiteside is currently facing carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
“WHITESIDE is a convicted sex offender. This is precisely why the presumption of detention exists in this situation — to safeguard the public from the danger the offender poses,” he argued. “The risk of harm to the community is great, when, as here, the defendant has perpetuated these crimes in such a community without detection. WHITESIDE should be presumptively detained pending trial.”
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