Prosecutors describe former Lubbock youth pastor as sexually violent offender

A Lubbock County prosecutor argued Monday that a 41-year-old former youth pastor is a sexually violent man who has abused teenagers for years and poses a danger to the community.

Luke Cunningham, who has been held in the Lubbock County Detention Center since his June 20 arrest at his home in the 1400 block of 15th Street in Shallowater, appeared in 140th District Court with his attorney, Michael King, to ask the court to reduce his bail from the current $500,000 to $100,000.

“That is a significant amount,” King told the court about the proposed bail amount.

The only evidence King presented during the bail reduction hearing was an affidavit from Cunningham’s wife stating that they could only afford a $100,000 bail.

King also asked the court to change a condition of Cunningham’s possible release on bail to allow him unsupervised contact with his own children.

He said a CPS investigation in Hood County was closed after investigators found no allegations that Cunningham abused his own children.

Cunningham was arrested on separate charges of sexual abuse of a child and aggravated sexual abuse of a child.

The first charge accuses him of sexually abusing a juvenile on January 8, 2017. The second charge accuses him of raping another juvenile on October 17, 2018, using his hands as a deadly weapon. He is also charged with a second count of sexual abuse of a child for touching the girl’s genitals on January 1, 2016.

“This child sexual abuse is extensive,” prosecutor Cassie Graham said in court. “He is clearly a danger to society.” Testimony from a police detective during Monday’s hearing indicated that Lubbock police have been investigating Cunningham since 2021 over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Det. Justin Ryan Wood of the Lubbock Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit told the court that the investigation into Cunningham, who also works as a real estate agent, was launched after one of the girls reported the abuse to police after learning he was still working as a church minister.

Wood said the girl’s parents learned of the abuse in 2019 when Cunningham was working as a youth pastor at Turning Point Community Church. He said the girl’s parents confronted Cunningham and agreed not to report him to police if he left the ministry.

Instead, Cunningham and his family moved to Granbury, where he worked as youth pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church.

However, Cunningham’s history of sexual misconduct with teenagers came to light during a church sexual abuse prevention training.

Wood said Cunningham allegedly confided in another pastor and “abused a teenager in Lubbock to some extent.”

Church officials continued to investigate Cunningham and contacted another Turning Point teen who also alleged that Cunningham had sexually abused her in Lubbock.

Evidence prosecutors presented to the court during the hearing included police reports and statements from the alleged victims describing a pattern of brutal sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Cunningham.

“(The files show) a picture of a very dangerous man,” prosecutor Cassie Graham said in court. “Not only did he sexually abuse children, but he did it in a brutal way.”

She told the court that one of the girls testified that Cunninghman slapped and choked her during the rape until she was unconscious.

Graham told the court that the investigation indicated that Cunningham manipulated the girls and coerced them into a sexual relationship by convincing them that he planned to leave his wife and be with them when they turned 18.

She told the court that there was an “overwhelming” amount of corroboration from church staff who had observed Cunningham’s inappropriate behavior toward the girls during overseas and out-of-state mission trips that he had specifically asked them to participate in.

One of the statements presented to the court allegedly came from a church employee who said that Cunningham was told during a trip to New Mexico that it was inappropriate to “let 16-year-old girls sleep on his lap.”

Graham provided the court with photographs from these missionary trips showing Cunningham posing with the girls, “placing his hands close to both victims’ chests as if he were in a (romantic) relationship.”

Graham also provided the court with screenshots of messages Cunningham sent to the girls urging them to minimize the inappropriate behavior. In the messages, Cunningham allegedly instructed them to tell anyone who found out about their relationship that they were just inappropriate messages, that they “made out a few times,” and that he touched her breasts once.

She said Cunningham told both girls not to take screenshots of their conversations, but one of the girls can be seen saving the conversation while Cunningham deletes it.

Graham told the court the investigation found that Cunningham’s predatory behaviour dated back to at least 2013.

Wood told the court that during his investigation he spoke with the pastor of a Fort Worth church who told him Cunningham resigned on the spot in 2015 because he could not comply with church policy prohibiting unsupervised contact with minors.

After leaving the church there, he moved to Lubbock, where he worked at Turning Point Community Church and Church on the Rock.

Graham told the court there may be other victims of Cunningham’s abuse. She said investigators spoke to a third teen who attended Turning Point Church. Cunningham threw her against a vending machine and then pinned her to the ground when she “didn’t give him the attention he wanted.”

She said the teenagers listed as victims in his two cases also told investigators that Cunningham would “threaten any young male in the youth group who had romantic inclinations toward (the girls).”

Wood told the court that shortly after obtaining the arrest warrant for Cunningham, investigators had difficulty locating him.

A check of license plate readers mounted on traffic lights in Lubbock revealed that one of Cunningham’s vehicles was spotted on June 9.

However, police officers were unable to locate Cunningham and turned to his family, who would not tell them his exact whereabouts and only said he was in New Mexico, Wood said.

Wood said Cunningham’s family also did not tell investigators that he returned to Lubbock before his arrest.

King did not go into the specifics of the investigation into his client in his closing argument, but asked the court to consider the three-year delay between when police learned of the allegations against his client and his arrest, which he said showed that officers did not consider his client an immediate threat to the community. He also told the court that there had been no further allegations against his client.

“The (Lubbock County District Attorney’s Office) and law enforcement could certainly have moved this case forward as early as 2022,” he argued. “But years went by. If he had been a danger (to the community) or a flight risk, then the state would certainly have acted upon hearing of the allegations.”

He said his client returned to Lubbock after learning that police had obtained a warrant for his arrest and was arrested at his home without incident.

“He is actually waiting outside his house for the police to come and make the arrest,” he said.

Graham argued that the court should leave Cunningham’s bail unchanged for the safety of the community as well as the listed victims and potential victims.

District Judge Douglas Freitag did not rule on Cunningham’s request for a bail reduction at the end of the hearing.

Officials now believe there are additional victims in the case and are asking them to contact Lubbock Police at 806-775-2817.

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