FL Man Charged with 1,200 Counts of Sex Abuse, Incest After Pastor Turns Him In

With so many stories of pastors looking the other way when it comes to sexual abuse, here’s a story about a pastor who did everything right.

Recently, 31-year-old Robert Joel Cota attended an event for new members at a local (unnamed) church in Pensacola, Florida. At some point during the event, Cota asked the pastor about the church’s stated beliefs about marriage, gender, sexual contact, etc. He specifically challenged why “incest” was on the list of forbidden things.

That seemed like a fairly obvious red flag.

The pastor said he told Cota what he was doing is not right and that Cota needed to report himself to authorities. The pastor gave the sheriff’s office a sheet with Cota’s current address and phone number that he filled out while at the event.

The sheriff’s office soon went to the home and found a little girl and her mother. It didn’t take long before everyone connected the dots.

The girl told deputies that Cota had been sexually assaulting her for the past three years. She said the abuse started when she was about 7 years old and estimated that it had happened more than 600 times, according to the arrest report.

Cota has now been charged with 600 counts of sexual assault and a separate 600 counts of incest. He’s being held at the Escambia County Jail, where his bond has been set at $3 million.

While the name of the pastor and church hasn’t been made public yet, good on him for not resorting to forgiveness or spiritual repentance as a way to deal with Cota’s revelations. He went to local law enforcement instead, as he should have. (I fear what could have happened if Cota had revealed all this to a Catholic priest in a confessional booth. Would the sanctity of confession be considered a greater priority than protecting a child? That’s what many Catholic leaders have argued!)

I’d also like to know why Cota wanted to join a church at all, or where his ambiguity about incest ever came from. It’s not hard to imagine that someone who’s a monster in real life would also want to join a church, but it’s much harder to fathom why he ever thought sexual abuse and incest would have been tolerated by the Christian God. Did he read Genesis and then just stop?

(Thanks to Marcus for the link)