He’s the devil in disguise.
An HIV-infected Florida pastor allegedly lured a teen into bed on multiple times — while hiding that he had the potentially deadly virus, according to authorities.
Timothy Chaneyfield, 42, apparently came clean after grooming and sexually abusing the 14-year-old on three different occasions at his Eagle Creek home, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference on Tuesday, before warning that there may be other victims.
The twisted man of the cloth — a pastor at the St. James United American Free Will Baptist Church and a hospice chaplain — is also HIV positive and kept it a secret from the boy before they had sex, Judd told reporters.
The sicko lured the teen in on a dating app — before he moved to direct messaging him on Instagram.
Chaneyfield — who also previously worked at Crystal Lake Middle School — then picked up the boy in his neighborhood and brought him back to his house where the two had sex.
“On those three different occasions, he wasn’t preaching, but he was messing around,” Judd told reporters.
“He groomed a child online, drove to the child’s neighborhood, picked him up, took him to his home, had sex with him.”
The sheriff’s office began probing the disgraced preacher after receiving a cyber tip from Instagram about alleged inappropriate activity with a minor.
Investigators have also spoken to a 26-year-old, who said he has tested positive for HIV after hooking up with the “super spreader” pastor.
The 14-year-old boy has since received a cocktail of drugs aimed at preventing him from contracting HIV — the sexually transmitted disease which can cause AIDs, and can be deadly, if left untreated.
“We pray that our work was fast enough, because we got our victim the HIV cocktail that we stopped this child from becoming infected. But we have a 26-year-old that said he engaged Timothy Chaneyfield in sex, and now he is HIV positive,” Judd said.
“Jesus doesn’t like that, and he’ll have to answer to that one day in a court much higher than ours, that he hid behind the cloak, that he abused the power and the persuasion of a well-recognized minister in order to groom children and apparently at least one adult.”
Chaneyfield was arrested in Orlando on July 29 after his flight touched down from Baltimore, where he was preaching at a funeral service.
He faces a laundry list of charges including lewd battery of a minor, interfering with custody of a minor, unlawful use of a two-way communication device, traveling to meet a minor, having sex as an HIV-infected person without informing the partner, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Anyone who has had sexual contact with Chaneyfield is urged to seek immediate medical care and to contact investigators.
“We fear that there was other victims out there because he was very aggressive,” Judd said, “and very adamant about having sex with apparently adults or children.”
