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Wisconsin Megachurch Pastor Re-arrested As Second Victim Comes Forward

By Liz Lykins
mills journey
Gabriel Mills, 41, formerly was on staff as guest experience pastor at Journey Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (Photo: Journey Church)

Gabriel “Gabe” Mills, a former pastor at a megachurch in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was arrested for a new charge seconds after his preliminary hearing for previous charges.

Mills is now facing three counts of the Class 1 Felony capturing an intimate representation without consent, the Kenosha Police Department said in a statement.

Mills, a former guest experiences pastor at Journey Church, was at the preliminary hearing for accusations made in a criminal complaint filed last week.

The complaint accused Mills of sending nude photos of a woman from the phone of her husband to Mills’ phone, The Roys Report (TRR) previously reported. Mills allegedly searched for the intimate photos on the husband’s phone during a church life group meeting at Mills’ home. He then sent them to himself via AirDrop.

Now a second victim has come forward with similar allegations, police reported. Detectives said they found evidence on Mills’ phone that substantiated the second victim’s claims.

Your tax-deductible gift helps our journalists report the truth and hold Christian leaders and organizations accountable. Give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report this month, and you can elect to receive a copy of “When the Church Harms God’s People” by Diane Langberg. To donate, click here.

Gabe Mills, a former pastor at Journey Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was arrested for allegedly transferring nude photos of a woman to his phone without consent. (Photo: Kenosha Police Department)

“We had another person come forward on Oct. 5 that indicated that they believe they were also a victim,” Josh Hecker, a lieutenant with the Kenosha Police Department, told 12 News Wednesday. “You will see a lot of similarities between the two cases. There isn’t much difference there.”

Several search warrants have been executed against Mills and “many items of evidence have been seized,” police said in the statement.

The seized items, which include mostly electronic devices, are being processed to identify other potential victims, police reported. Mills’ investigation is still ongoing, and police are asking anyone with information to come forward. 

Next steps regarding the new charge against Mills are still pending.

Church leadership declined to give police statement

Mills, 41, was fired from his role at the Journey Church on September 29, one day after church leadership learned of the allegations against the pastor, TRR reported.

Church leadership sent an email  informing congregants of Mills’ termination.

“This news has come as a great shock to our church and school community,” the email, obtained by Kenosha County Eye, said. “Gabe is entitled to due process, and we will cooperate with law enforcement as they conduct their investigation.”

journey church kenosha
Journey Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin. (Photo via social media)

However, the criminal complaint alleges that church leadership hasn’t been fully cooperative with police.

Lead Pastor Kevin Taylor told police that he had spoked with Mills on September 28 and 29 regarding the allegations. Taylor confirmed he terminated Mills on September 29 because the “allegations were believable enough,” according to the criminal complaint.

When police asked Taylor to provide a formal statement of his conversations with Mills, Taylor declined. “Kevin indicated that he had spoken to Journey Church’s attorneys and he would not provide a statement,” according to the criminal complaint.

TRR reached out to the church for further comment but did not hear back prior to publication.

Journey Church belongs to the Assemblies of God and operates four campuses nationally and one in Lithuania, according to its website. The church has limited comments on both of its social media accounts, Instagram and Facebook.

Mills pleads not guilty

Mills entered a plea of not guilty yesterday for the first two charges against him, according to court records. He will next appear in court in December.

He was allegedly caught red-handed by the victim with her intimate photos, according to the criminal complaint. She saw one photo of her pop up on Mills’ phone after Mills had borrowed her husband’s phone for a “really long time.”

Mills had reportedly borrowed the phone under the pretense that he was downloading an audiobook app onto it.

Police later seized Mills phone and found two inappropriate nude photos on his phone, which the victim verified were of her. Neither of the photos were the original one she saw on Mills’ phone, according to the complaint.

“We believe that the defendant’s actions as described in the criminal complaint, does show that he did capture and then stored on a device of his . . . intimate images which were taken from another person without that person’s consent,” the prosecuting attorney, Rosa Delgado, said during the preliminary hearing.

Church members told TMJ4 that they were still in disbelief about the news.

However, other church members shared with KCE that Journey Church is a “cult-like” church.

One Facebook user made a similar allegation about a cult-like atmosphere at the church and urged people to stop attending.

Liz Lykins is a correspondent covering religion news for The Roys Report, WORLD Magazine, and other publications.

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13 Responses

  1. Are any ‘Christian pastors’ in the US actually even Christian?! It just seems like this happens again and again and again.

    Is the issue that America is a ‘Christian country’ where anyone can call themself ‘Christian’ and then starts a church or says they are called to the ministry, but often is actually still living in sin and hasn’t been truly converted? I just don’t get the crazy amounts of these so-called pastors committing these constant terrible sins…

    1. Tom, it seems that pairing “the Gospel” with american individualism and capitalism is proving quite disasterous. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise, any time christianity has sidled up to empire it’s failed. A good walk through the history of this particular failure is Jesus and John Wayne, by Kristen Kobe DuMez

    2. I think it maybe because pastors copy the world. In my church the pastor refers to the movies they have watched in order to connect with the audience. By filling your mind with entertainment/stories designed for the world there will certainly be a subtle escalation in wanting to act on those fantasies. This is the result of engaging with this sort of content on a regular basis. When did the Bible inform the pastor that he has to learn about stories that this world finds stimulating in order to connect well with his flock?

    3. Perhaps your brush is too broad sir. While one corrupt pastor is one too many, it does not mean most are like that.

      1. The key question for everyone is: How do you know? How do you know you know? Is your analysis vetted against any perspective other than a perspective that is loath to ask focused, germane questions? If we don’t ask, why don’t we ask? What cost do we associate with asking?….and on it goes. A few years ago when the Ravi Zacharias debacle came into view I asked four faith based nonprofits I supported a series of questions of that very nature. Two responded effectively. Two did not. Guess who still gets my support. One who did not respond effectively sent a clear signal that he felt he was above responding. (Uh, no…that’s not how this works, my friend.) One of those that responded effectively informed me that of about 15,000 supporting “partners” I was the only one who posed such questions. Nothing will change until the folks writing the checks start asking questions. Posting on blogs and forums doesn’t count. Those same folks, however, don’t ask because of the perceived cost for doing so, little knowing that there is also a cost for not asking. TNSTAAFL* I’d rather pay for asking hard questions than pay for not asking when it becomes apparent that I should have asked. I’d submit much of the sad stuff we see going on is going on since the perpetrators feel secure they will never be queried. It is part of the “business model.” As it turns out, they are right. Nothing will change until they are proven wrong.

        *There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

    4. Tom, we must remember the many pastors that do not make headlines, because they are living the way they should.

    5. Hey Tim now they support violence done for Trump to boot. I have them in my family via marriage. I kid you not. Plus I’m a retired Special Agent for the US Treasury where I worked 27 1/2 years. Let’s just say I mourned when 5 of my Brothers and sisters died from the 1/6/21 attack and the 60 more maimed for life. A friend of the family member who’s a Pastor didn’t even rebuke his church buddy when he said the Cops deserved it. This dude was at the attack and cheering on Trump Terrorists beating the cops This Pastor didn’t even flyinch or rebuke the dude ie his Bible Church in Poconos. The Church is GONE FOLKS. PRAY THE BLUE WINS.

      1. Joe…
        One opinion is that what you have seen comes from the need of the pastor to “feed his flock” what they want to consume. No pastor is in the pulpit long before they can discern precisely what that is. I’m in my 83rd year of life’s journey and have seen this repeatedly. I’ve left a fair number of fellowships over this issue. I don’t need to hear what I think is right or what I want to hear, but neither will I sit and endure what “the crowd” is insisting on when the pastor has become their pawn for delivery of that product. I learned a long time ago that door at the back swings out just as easily as it swings in. This is never easy since one almost always travels alone at a time like that. That’s because the journey is always costly at some level, usually in the area of relationships. Someone will own my choices. I’ll always choose me. If this process does not begin with that person you meet in the mirror first thing in the morning, it will never begin at all. Regardless if there is a choice to action or not, that choice cannot but issue from the person in the mirror, and them alone. I find a certain resonance with some of Soren Kierkegaard’s utterances from mid 19th century Denmark:
        “No one dares to be himself; everyone is hiding in togetherness”
        “We are no longer salt; we are a mass.”
        “To be like others is humankind’s degeneration, the degradation to copies.”
        “The majority of people are not so afraid of holding a wrong opinion, as they are of holding an opinion alone.”

    1. I gleaned this from Google.

      “A guest experience pastor is responsible for the overall experience of guests and members at a church, and for ensuring that worship experiences are executed well.”

  2. First of all, does anyone believe this was for private use? That this pastor is so brazen he would go behind a police officers back just for his own benefit?

    I am aware of many of these types of abuses in toxic churches that were never caught and harmed victims badly. I have been victim to similar things. This is an old tactic in cult like churches to create evidence against victims as well as to use as blackmail. I am so grateful that these crimes are coming out in the open. This is not an isolated incident in just this church, it has been used against a lot of women in many religions and areas. I began speaking out a few years ago after my own horrible experiences with church abuse. Bad practice in the churches ends only when we use our voices to expose hidden harmful abuses.

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