Macon pastor pleads guilty to molestation in sexual assault of girl he offered ride home
A Macon pastor pleaded guilty Monday to child molestation and other charges related to an incident in which prosecutors said he offered a girl in her early teens — a stranger to him — a ride home as part of ruse to sexually assault her.
Donald Eugune Williams, 33, also pleaded guilty to statutory rape and sexual battery of a child under the age of 16 in connection with the Sept. 3, 2021, episode.
Prosecutors said that upon leaving the Peake Road campus in northwestern Bibb County, Williams drove the girl — who was not a student at the school but was there attending an event — to a secluded area and sexually assaulted her.
In court Monday, Judge Howard Z. Simms sentenced Williams to 20 years in prison followed by 25 years on probation.
Williams, who in his role as a minister often officiated funerals for those without home churches, became a suspect after the victim in the case informed a family member. Williams had given the victim his business card, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors last month filed notice that, had the case gone to trial, they intended to introduce evidence of a similar case involving Williams in Houston County in 2010.
In that matter, prosecutors said Williams, 21 at the time, approached a 14-year-old girl while he was driving his car. Prosecutors said he followed the girl and offered her a ride multiple times. The girl declined, but in the same encounter, another girl, 16, told the authorities that Williams had offered her a ride and exposed himself to her.
Williams, in that case, pleaded guilty to criminal attempt to commit child molestation and was sentenced to 60 days in jail and five years on probation.
This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 1:53 PM.