Former youth pastor sentenced in connection with sexual assault of 15-year-old girl

Former youth pastor sentenced in connection with sexual assault of 15-year-old girl
Klint Bitter
A former Omaha youth pastor was sentenced Wednesday to 10 to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of attempted first-degree sexual assault. Because most sentences are cut in half under state law, 35-year-old Klint Bitter will serve five to 10 years in prison. Bitter, then employed as a pastor at Christ Community Church in Omaha, contacted a male teenager in February 2017 to set up a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old girl, Sarpy County prosecutors said. Bitter then assaulted the girl in Bellevue, they said. A church spokesman has said Bitter worked for the church for seven years and was fired following his arrest. At Bitter's sentencing hearing Wednesday, Deputy Sarpy County Attorney Phil Kleine said Bitter had texted a now-19-year-old man following an encounter in 2017. "That was hot, bro, let's do it again," Kleine said the text read. "How old are you two for real? I just really wish you both were 18." The 19-year-old, DeArch Stubblefield of Bellevue, has pleaded guilty to attempted human trafficking in connection with the case and was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison. Another man, Jason T. Gibson, 42, of La Vista, was sentenced to six months in jail in December after pleading no contest to attempted first-degree sexual assault of the girl. That sentence is being appealed by the Sarpy County Attorney's Office as being "excessively lenient," Kleine said. Kleine said the lives of Bitter, Stubblefield, Gibson and the teenage girl have been ruined because of what happened. "It's sad that they had such destructive behavior," he said, referring to the three defendants. Neither the girl nor her parents attended Wednesday's hearing. In a letter to the court, the father said, "I'm positive that the impact of these crimes has not been fully discovered." He said his daughter was robbed of her normal teenage years.
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