This article is part of “Pastors and Prey,” a series investigating sex abuse allegations in the Assemblies of God.
WACO, Texas — Daniel Savala, a former missionary whose influence inside an Assemblies of God-run college ministry persisted for years despite repeated warnings about his predatory behavior, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that he sexually abused two boys.
Appearing by video from jail, Savala, 70, entered the plea before Judge Susan Kelly, admitting to one count of continuous trafficking of persons, a felony charge for offenders who engage in a pattern of sexual exploitation involving multiple victims over time. Under a negotiated plea agreement, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
Savala, dressed in gray jail scrubs, showed no emotion as he entered his plea and accepted a sentence that prosecutors expect will send him to prison for the rest of his life.
“I don’t expect he will ever see the light of day again,” McLennan County District Attorney Josh Tetens said afterward. “And that is justice in this case.”
The plea brought closure to a criminal case that began in 2023 after revelations that leaders in the Chi Alpha campus ministry repeatedly failed to act on allegations against Savala, allowing him to continue mentoring teens and young men for years.
Last year, an NBC News investigation found that leaders in the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination, were warned again and again about Savala’s history but failed to cut off his access to students in Texas — even after a 2012 child sex abuse conviction in Alaska. Instead, he remained a revered spiritual figure among pastors in Chi Alpha, who called him “Papa Daniel” and “the holiest man alive” and sent scores of students to his Houston home for guidance.
Behind that image was a secretive ministry built around a backyard sauna, where Savala invoked scripture to persuade boys and young men to undress, preaching that “nudity is unity” and blurring the line between spiritual mentoring and sexual exploitation, according to his accusers and former followers.
Savala’s devotees included a pastor from Waco who brought his own sons, ages 11 and 12 at the time, to Savala’s home beginning in 2021. According to court records, the boys were instructed to undress in the sauna, where Savala sexually abused them while their father was present — the conduct at the center of the charges Savala pleaded guilty to Thursday. The criminal case against the boys’ father is pending.
Savala’s plea carried weight for a broader group of accusers and whistleblowers, some of whom attended the hearing and saw the conviction as the culmination of decades of alleged abuse and years of ignored warnings. At least eight others have accused Savala of sexually abusing them as teens or young men, according to lawsuits, signed statements and criminal filings.
One of them, Joseph Cleveland, addressed Savala in court while delivering a victim impact statement. Choking back tears, he said Savala exploited his search for fatherly wisdom as a teenager, calling his former mentor “a deceitful, evil” predator.
“You’re not the ‘holiest man alive,’” said Cleveland, who accused Savala of grooming and sexually abusing him for a decade beginning in 2004, when he was 15. “You’re not a ‘guru.’ You’re not even a man of God. You’re a charlatan.”
Savala, who’d made a name for himself in Pentecostal circles as a world-traveling missionary, embedded himself in Chi Alpha at Sam Houston State University, where beginning in the 1990s, pastors came to see him as a supreme spiritual authority despite his lack of formal training or credentials. As the ministry at Sam Houston grew into the largest Chi Alpha chapter in the country, his teachings — including an emphasis on unquestioned obedience to spiritual leaders — spread with it, carried by former students who went on to launch chapters across Texas and beyond.
Behind the scenes, Savala’s accusers say, he continued to abuse students, often convincing them that the sexual acts were part of God’s will.
Church leaders had a clear opportunity to intervene in 2012, when Savala was charged in Alaska with sexually abusing boys during his time as a youth minister in the 1990s. Instead, Chi Alpha leaders in Texas rallied to his defense, paying his bond and hiring a lawyer for him. After he pleaded guilty and served a short jail sentence, the pastors allowed him to resume mentoring students.
In the decade that followed, at least half a dozen people contacted Assemblies of God officials in Texas and at the denomination’s national headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, warning that Chi Alpha was exposing students to a convicted sex offender. These whistleblowers sent emails and made phone calls raising concerns. Again and again, they were dismissed or ignored, NBC News found.
Some of those whistleblowers later went public, led by Ron Bloomingkemper Jr., a former Chi Alpha member who said he left the ministry in the 1990s after Savala pressured him into sexual activity. In 2023, he and others launched a website and online forum that became a clearinghouse for allegations against Savala and other Chi Alpha leaders.
The revelations triggered a cascade of consequences, including criminal charges against Savala and some of his protégés, lawsuits from accusers and the dismissal of multiple Chi Alpha leaders.
Bloomingkemper said Savala’s conviction was a step toward justice, but he still wanted to see the church structure that enabled him to be held accountable.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” he said after the hearing. “It’s not about one man. It’s about a system that allowed one man to basically groom and manipulate and abuse people.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the General Council of the Assemblies of God, the church’s U.S. governing body, said the denomination was “pleased to hear reports of Mr. Savala’s conviction.”
“The Assemblies of God stands in strong opposition to the teachings and practices he followed,” the statement said.
In previous statements, the General Council said Savala was never a credentialed minister and that it warned Chi Alpha leaders in 2018 to stay away from him. Five years later, after receiving “reports of sexual abuse,” the denomination said it “took appropriate actions,” including dismissing more than a half dozen ministers with ties to Savala. The denomination has repeatedly defended its child protection policies and said it grieves for all victims of abuse.
A handful of former Chi Alpha members and a minister attended the hearing Thursday. The father of another teen who says Savala sexually abused him in 2021 also delivered a victim impact statement over video feed.
Cleveland, now 37, had spent years thinking about what he would say to Savala if he ever got the chance. From the witness stand Thursday, he said he’d come to speak on behalf of “all the men and boys you hurt.”
“To this day, I still live with the effects of the pain you caused,” Cleveland said. “There are nights where I can’t sleep, I often feel paranoid and have constant headaches. Those are the fruits of your labor.”
Drawing on the same faith Savala once used to influence him, Cleveland said he was choosing to offer his former mentor something he hadn’t earned: forgiveness.
“Not because you deserve it,” Cleveland said. “If it was up to me, I wouldn’t do it. But I do know that God is better than you. God is better than the church that harbored you.”
Suzanne Gamboa reported from Waco, and Mike Hixenbaugh reported from Washington, D.C.
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