Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 23, 1995 TAG: 9506230065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Leyva had a hearing before a parole examiner earlier this month and had hoped to be released. He is technically eligible for parole, but the examiner recommended to the U.S. Parole Commission that Leyva be denied release.
He has a mandatory release date of October 1998, when he will have served less than half of his 20-year sentence. After that, however, he has a 21/2-year sentence to serve in Virginia on a conviction for molesting boys in Roanoke County.
Leyva and two associates pleaded guilty in federal court in Roanoke in 1989 to transporting minors across state lines for prostitution, charges that stemmed from their offering food, money and travel in exchange for sex.
Leyva often told parents who were having trouble with their sons that he would take them on the road to work in his revivals, teach them religion and help some become ministers. He picked up boys across the Southeast and Midwest this way.
The self-ordained minister is scheduled to have another parole hearing in May 1997, according to the prison in Tallahassee, Fla., where he is housed.
Leyva admitted molesting at least 100 boys, some as young as 8, over nearly 25 years. His associates - organist Rias Edward Morris, and Freddie Herring, pastor of Lighthouse Assembly in Douglasville, Ga. - shared some of those boys after the three discovered in 1983 their common interest in pedophilia. Morris and Herring were given 15-year sentences in Roanoke federal court and already have been released.
The Parole Commission originally set Leyva's mandatory parole date for Oct. 20, 1998. Leyva will get out on that day if he maintains good conduct in prison and ``no other circumstances change,'' spokesman Joe Krovisky said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
by CNB