Zachary King
Introduction
Zachary King is the former executive pastor of LexCity Church in Lexington, Kentucky, who pleaded guilty on March 23, 2026, to seven felony counts — including first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy — for the sexual abuse of a young member of his own congregation, and was sentenced on June 4, 2026, to 13 years in prison. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office prosecuted the case, telling the court that King used his position of spiritual trust to prey on a victim who attended the church he pastored. King must register as a lifetime sex offender.
Background Information
King, 48, led LexCity Church as executive pastor in Lexington. According to the Attorney General’s office, a Fayette County grand jury indicted him in August 2024 for crimes committed against a member of his congregation who was a minor when the abuse occurred. Court documents cited by the office state that King restrained the victim on one occasion in order to rape and sodomize her, and that on at least one other occasion he raped and sodomized her again; the June sentencing announcement adds that King later contacted the victim to arrange additional meetings in which he sexually assaulted her.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Guilty plea. King admitted the conduct by pleading guilty; the facts below are from the Kentucky Attorney General’s announcements of the plea and the sentencing.
On March 23, 2026, King pleaded guilty in Fayette Circuit Court to seven felony counts: Rape First Degree (Class B), Sodomy First Degree (Class B), Unlawful Use of Electronic Means to Induce a Minor to Engage in Sexual or Other Prohibited Activities (Class B), Unlawful Transaction with a Minor First Degree with a Victim Under 18 (Class C), Rape Third Degree (Class D), Sodomy Third Degree (Class D), and Sexual Abuse First Degree (Class D). The victim, who attended LexCity Church, was a minor at the time of the abuse. “This so-called pastor’s abuse of his position of spiritual trust to prey on a young victim was heartbreaking,” Attorney General Coleman said when the plea was announced. “We are sending this predator to prison to protect more Kentuckians from horrific abuse.”
The plea deal carried a recommended sentence of 13 years, a lifetime sex-offender registration requirement, a ten-year no-contact order protecting the victim, and King’s agreement not to object to a renewal of that order. The Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations worked the case with the Lexington Police Department, and Assistant Attorneys General Todd Willard and Amanda Morgan prosecuted it.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case removed a congregation’s leader in handcuffs-to-prison arc that the state’s top law-enforcement office publicized at both the plea and the sentencing — an unusual degree of visibility for a church sex-abuse prosecution in Kentucky. The Attorney General’s Office of Victims Advocacy provided services to the victim throughout the proceedings, and the office framed the outcome as accountability for a betrayal of “an entire congregation and community.” The sentencing hearing on June 4, 2026, formally imposed the 13-year term agreed under the plea.
Current Status
King was sentenced on June 4, 2026, to 13 years in prison in Fayette Circuit Court. Under the plea agreement he must register as a lifetime sex offender, and the judge ordered him to have no contact with the victim; the ten-year protective no-contact order runs from the 2026 plea. The sentence followed the recommended deal, and the criminal case is resolved by conviction rather than pending charges.
Impact on Their Career/Life
King’s church career ended with a felony sex-offender conviction that guarantees he will never hold a ministry position again: the seven pleas include Class B felonies carrying presumptive multi-year prison terms, and the lifetime registration requirement follows him in every state. The case is a textbook account of spiritual authority weaponized against a child in the congregation, prosecuted by a state Attorney General’s office that has made crimes against children a signature priority, and it leaves LexCity Church’s leadership permanently scarred by what its own executive pastor did to one of its own young members.