A former South Carolina church youth volunteer will avoid prison but must register as a sex offender and wear a GPS ankle monitor for life after admitting to illegally touching children in crimes that spanned years, according to York County court records and lawyers in the case. William Pinckney Carpenter III, 64, of Chester, pleaded guilty Wednesday to four felony counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child in a hearing at the Moss Justice Center in York for crimes that went from 2011 to 2021, documents show. Carpenter pleaded guilty to touching children over their clothes, said prosecutor Misti Shelton, 16th Circuit assistant deputy solicitor. The crimes happened when Carpenter was a church volunteer at two Baptist churches in Rock Hill and York, at a private home, and aboard a bus during a church activity, Shelton said. Judge Dan Hall sentenced Carpenter after agreeing to accept the negotiated plea and sentence deal made between Carpenter and prosecutors, said Shelton and Carpenter’s lawyer, Montrio Belton of Rock Hill. A 15-year prison concurrent sentence on each of the four convictions was suspended to probation as part of the deal, according to the lawyers and court documents in the case. A conviction can carry up to 15 years prison for each charge under South Carolina law. A plea agreement means the victims will not have to go through a trial where they would have had to publicly testify, and there is always a chance of a not-guilty verdict.
Hellbound and Down 