Former Church Worker Sentenced for Sexually Abusing Girls in HoCo

By Andrew Metcalf

A former church employee who sexually abused three young girls in his Columbia home between 2010 and 2011 was sentenced to 150 years in prison in Howard County Circuit Court last week.

Joseph Edgar Davis, 40, pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual abuse of a minor and 10 counts of other sex offenses in April.

Davis met the three girls—ages 3 to 5— when he worked in the IT department of the General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists in Silver Spring, according to Wayne Kirwan, a spokesperson for the Howard County state's attorney's office.

Davis cultivated a relationship with the girls' mother to get access to the girls, according to Kirwan.

Police determined between May 29, 2010 and April 7, 2011 Davis took a total of 80 images of the girls being sexually abused inside his residence in the 9400 block of Vollmerhausen Dr. in Columbia.

The explicit images were first discovered after Seventh-day Adventist employees accessed Davis' external hard drive through a network system when it was determined he was using significantly more bandwidth than any other employee, according to Kirwan.

Because Davis later moved to Montgomery County, the investigation was a joint effort between Montgomery County Police and Howard County Police.

Howard County Circuit Court Judge Richard S. Bernhardt issued the lengthy sentence due to the age of the victims, the abuse of the mothers' trust, and "Davis' depravity in not only abusing the girls but memorializing the abuse on film," wrote Kirwan.

Davis also pleaded guilty in May to federal child pornography charges stemming from this incident, for which he'll be sentenced in September, according to Kirwan.

Davis, who moved to Burtonsville, still faces other charges in Montgomery County, Kirwan added, after additional abuse allegations surfaced there.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church issued a statement saying it has a zero-tolerance practice relating to accessing pornographic websites on computers or electronic devices, according to an Explore Howard report. 

"The Seventh-day Adventist Church views the care and protection of children as a value of utmost importance, and will cooperate with authorities as they investigate any activities that may have been illegal in nature," stated the church, according to the report. 

The paper reported Davis was fired from the church in March of 2012.