Minister Who Beat Daughter Is Sentenced

A Pacoima pastor convicted of beating his teen-age daughter has been placed on probation and sentenced to the seven months he already served in jail while awaiting trial.

William Sutton Henderson, 40, a pastor at Praise Chapel Fellowship in Pacoima, could have been sentenced to eight years and four months in prison.

Although ordered to be released from custody by Superior Court Judge John Fisher at the sentencing Thursday, police say Henderson was turned over to Nevada authorities for a parole violation hearing. He is on parole from a 1977 conviction in that state for rape, robbery and forcible oral copulation.

He was convicted in Van Nuys Superior Court on July 3 of beating his daughter, Latasha, 14, severely enough to raise welts on her legs, buttocks, back and hands.

At the trial, Henderson testified that he whipped the girl as punishment for lying and disobeying him. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Teri M. Hutchison argued that Henderson went beyond what was needed to discipline a youngster.

Henderson was arrested after the girl’s mother, who lives in Nevada, told police that Latasha returned from her father’s home with numerous scars on her body.

Jurors convicted the pastor of two counts of felony child beating and two counts of misdemeanor child endangerment.