A former youth minister now living in Milford is facing charges of attempting to engage in sex with minors while he worked at a Virginia church.
Jeff Taylor, 66, appeared in a Virginia federal court Tuesday on charges that he enticed minors for illegal sexual activity and traveled with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity with minors. Federal prosecutors said the offenses occurred during his time as a minister at The Falls Church Anglican from 1990 to 2002.
Taylor arrived in the Cincinnati area after working as a youth minister at The Falls Church and two other churches in Georgia. He spent most of his time in Cincinnati at the University of Cincinnati Foundation, where he solicited donors and helped coordinate fundraising on behalf
of UC Health's Gardner Neuroscience Institute from 2013 to 2023.
UC Foundation officials have said they conducted a routine background check before hiring Taylor and had no knowledge of the abuse allegations until after he left the foundation. They said his work at the foundation involved regular contact with physicians and adult donors but not with children.
Years after he left The Falls Church in 2002, church officials commissioned an independent investigation that found three men have accused Taylor of sexually abusing them when they were boys in the 1990s.
More than a dozen others told the investigator Taylor behaved inappropriately and asked them questions related to sex and masturbation.
“Taylor, while employed with the Church, engaged in varying levels of conduct that was inappropriate and would fall within the definitions of sexual grooming or sexual abuse,” wrote Edward Isler, an attorney with the IslerDare law firm, which was hired to conduct the investigation.
Isler also concluded that after receiving a credible report of abuse in 2007, about five years after Taylor had left Falls Church, church leaders “failed to take all of the necessary steps to determine whether there had been other victims of sexual abuse by Taylor.”
A group of Taylor's former students created a website, Jeff Taylor Justice, which offers support for his accusers and provides background, reports and news about Taylor. A post on the site Tuesday welcomed the news from federal court.
"JEFF TAYLOR WAS ARRESTED on sexual abuse charges," the post said. "After decades of secrets and inaction, it is now public."
The Washington Post reported on the allegations last year and noted that several of Taylor's accusers had spoken to the FBI about their experiences with him.
According to the IslerDare report, The Falls Church hired Taylor in 1990 to run its youth program, which grew to include 300 to 500 young people during his tenure. The report said participants in the program and their parents considered Taylor a charismatic leader and good public speaker who was treated at times as a “revered saint” or “mini-Jesus.”
After working for the churches, but before coming to Cincinnati, Taylor worked briefly for the Red Cross in Georgia. He joined the UC Foundation in 2013.
According to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, Taylor engaged in "grooming behaviors" such as sexual horseplay, asked questions about the boys' sexual secrets and had conversations with them about his own sexual experiences. They said he traveled with boys to ministry events with "the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct."
"Taylor allegedly engaged or attempted to engage in sexual molestation of multiple boys," prosecutors said.
Taylor is scheduled for arraignment on Sept. 24. If convicted, he faces up to 105 years in prison.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Former youth minister charged with abusing minors
