Convicted sex offender offered opening prayer at rally for GOP Senate nominee in North Carolina
By: North Carolina ( httpswww. cleveland. com)
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A pastor kicked off a recent campaign stop for Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee for Senate, with a prayer that asked God to bestow "integrity and honesty" upon the event and to right wrongs "hammered down on the conservative movement."
The prayer was hardly unusual by North Carolina political standards. What was surprising was the man who delivered it. Pastor Daimon L. King is a registered sex offender, twice sentenced to prison for convictions involving children, according to state and court records.
The episode occurred with two months to go in a marquee Senate race that could help decide which party controls the chamber after the November elections. It risks undermining one of Whatley's central campaign arguments — that his Democratic opponent, former Gov. Roy Cooper, is soft on crime. And it could feed into an advertising blitz by Democrats that has targeted the Republican candidate's association with another convicted sex offender, a former GOP official.
FILE - North Carolina Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Michael Whatley addresses the crowd before Vice President JD Vance speaks, March 13, 2026, in Rocky Mount, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Seward, File)(Chris Seward | AP Photo/Chris Seward)
King did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Whatley's campaign declined to make him available for an interview. In a statement, campaign spokesman DJ Griffin said Whatley did not know King and the event "was NOT planned nor organized by the Whatley campaign nor did the campaign invite any of the guests."
He emphasized that King had been "invited by the hosts," which he identified as the Craven County Republican Party.
Officials with the county party could not be reached for comment.
Whatley led state and national GOP before entering Senate race
Whatley served as chairman of the North Carolina GOP from 2019 until Trump elevated him in 2024 to lead the Republican National Committee, a post he stepped down from to pursue the Senate seat at the president's urging.
King's prayer and Whatley's association with the former GOP official Harvey L. West Jr., the other convicted sex offender, could prove particularly problematic as the Republican Senate candidate seeks to shore up support from hard-right conservatives, said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University who is not related to the former governor.
Anger in Trump's base over the government's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case pressured the president to sign legislation to release the records.
The documents, which detailed the deceased sex offender's interactions with prominent figures in politics and business, pushed suspicions about powerful people and institutions that had circulated for years on the political right into a much broader public debate.
"The far right has not coalesced behind (Whatley) and these kinds of revelations will make that problem even greater," Cooper said.
Pastor prayed at event featuring Whatley and a top Trump administration official
King, 60, is the leader of New Beginnings Celebration church in New Bern, a town near the North Carolina coast where the rally was held on Aug. 28. The pastor has taken on an increasingly visible role in Republican politics in recent years. He presents himself as a pro-Trump Black conservative and has served as a precinct chairman for the Craven County GOP. He has praised Trump and decried "fake news" in sermons uploaded to YouTube, delivering what he calls the "pure, uncut word of God."
The event at the Craven County GOP headquarters featured Whatley and Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former daytime TV personality who is Trump's administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
King can be seen in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter, by Whatley's campaign following the event. While Whatley and Oz took turns railing against fraud in the medical system, King positioned himself conspicuously in the background, nodded along in agreement and flashed a double thumbs-up.
King took to his church's Facebook group the next day to offer a glowing assessment of the event.
"The atmosphere was charged with prayer and patriotism through the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of THE United States of America!!!" King wrote, adding that he and his church "fully support and are behind" Whatley.
Some 30 years ago, King was a marching band assistant at a high school outside Raleigh when he was charged with statutory rape and indecent liberties with a 15-year-old student, The News & Observer reported at the time. King, then 31, was convicted in 1998 and served nearly five years in prison before being paroled, according to state department of corrections records.
In 2010, he pleaded guilty to having sex with an underage female relative and served close to three years in prison, state records show.
King is required under North Carolina law to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Democrats have blasted Whatley over association with another convicted sex offender
Since March, Whatley has been dogged over his ties to West, who served as a congressional district committee chair in the state GOP when Whatley was chairman.
West, a former small-town police officer, was convicted of five counts of indecent liberties with a child and served six years in prison, corrections records show.
In 2012, news outlets reported on his conviction, forcing West to step down as an alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention.
At the time, West denied he had committed the offenses and said that he had pleaded guilty to avoid the risk of spending decades behind bars, The Associated Press reported. He is no longer required to register as a sex offender.
West's conviction resurfaced in the campaign earlier this year after Republican activists publicly aired concerns about his continued role in the party. The state GOP has since banned convicted sex offenders from holding party office.
Democrats, however, continue to hammer Whatley over the issue, spending more than $2.3 million on ads featuring a photo of Whatley and West posing together.
West says he warned GOP officials about King's convictions
In an interview, West said he has always been transparent with party leaders about his past and noted that the main job he held in the state GOP was an elected position. He acknowledged, however, that he had been appointed to other roles when Whatley was chairman.
"I'm not going to say Michael Whatley put me up there," West said. "But I wasn't taken off either."
West said he has sought to atone for his past and expressed frustration that his conviction had become a campaign issue.
"I wanted to serve as I followed my own redemption path. We have a right to be part of the political process," West said. "For 20 years, I have been upfront and open about who I am and what happened to me. Not everyone does that."
West also said he was familiar with King's convictions and warned others in the party about associating with the pastor when he was considered for a GOP position. "I just said, 'Hey, y'all might want to take a look at this,'" said West.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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this article has everything required for mocking the party of family values. a bible thumping maga pedophile, in the south ...
totally normal, nothing to see here ...
he was allowed to give the opening prayer because sex with a 15 year old female is close enough in the south, and having sex with a female relative is biblical ...
Being from the south, I'd argue, but I can't.
I thought churches were trying to get rid of their pedophile pastors because of the optics, but I guess not.
I'm the only living member of both sides of the family that was actually born in the south. I used to carry my birth certificate around in my wallet just to shut the fucking goobers up when the southern heritage spin bullshit started, although I found there were plenty of texans that thought they were an elite part of the old south, as they're still taught to believe in tx public schools.
I went to the pedo pastor's church's facebook page. I expected some comments about his past, but there was only one, and my reply to it. In fact, there were very few comments in general, which is a pretty good indicator they're deleting comments as they're posted. The church is almost certainly actively protecting a convicted sex offender.
They're VERY political, too, and should therefore be paying taxes.
I think what most on the left don't understand about rightwing conservative Christian delusion is that in their minds, if you're actively supporting and even 'trying' to be a 'good' conservative Christian, aka telling everyone how righteous you are and how much you love Jesus and voting Republican, then you can be forgiven for doing ANYTHING. Infidelity, adultery, drugs, raping kids, lying, cheating, paying bribes, ALL can be forgiven with that one magic word their God of deceit gave them, repentance! That's right, if they get to the safe tree of 'repentance' fast enough and tell all their sappy stupid fellows a sob story about how they got tempted by Satan and were imperfect but saw the error of their ways and as a prodigal son have returned, well then all is forgiven and they're welcomed back into the fold. These fuckers are so stupid they don't just let the snake bite them once, they keep picking the God damned thing up and saying, "Oh, well this time you wouldn't lie to me, right?".
Yes. I grew up in churches that were only a little bit less conservative than this. Just confess your sins (not necessarily to other people, but to God), repent, ask forgiveness, and it's yours. And it's always sincere, no matter how many times you commit the same sin and start over again/s
My late unlamented uncle (by marriage) was one of these assholes. Never lost his standing in the church, even though one of his sermons was him confessing to cheating on my aunt. My "adopted" cousins look suspiciously similar to him, even though they were born to young women (I hope they were adults, but don't know) he was "counselling" in his day job as a social worker. He also likely committed arson for insurance money twice, but I doubt anybody would ever be able to prove it. And he encouraged his sons to party and do drugs at home, where he "knew they were safe", so that not one, but two young people actually overdosed and died in their house. And there were stories about him and some of my underage female cousins. The girls caught most of the blame there, of course. In the end, I didn't know he'd died until several weeks after the fact, because his sons assumed, rightly, that nobody would give a damn, past caring for their pain. His church might have forgiven him, but we didn't.
there's no financial future in banishing somebody that repetitively stupid from a religion for sins, when there's a chance to extract a bonus whenever the morons are caught in compromising positions outside the church. you simply make them pay for admission again, and when they face the abyss you remind them of all their transgressions of the past and guilt them into leaving a going away present to the church to insure safe passage to the land of milk and honey.
there's always been big money in second, third, etc, chances for those that need to be reminded weekly to be an honorable human with a payment structure for those that can't ...
the best part of the oldest scam in history is that it's tax exempt ...
I'm not even sure I'd say they were stupid, or at least, they're not the stupidest people in the room. Their audience keeps falling for their stories.
Oral Roberts got people to send him money to keep God from killing him.
Jimmy Swaggart was able to hop from church to church, remaining a pastor, despite his penchant for picking up hookers.
We still see the likes of Creflo Dollar, Paula White, and Ken Copeland, and I'm sure they're all making more bank than most of us. Their congregations are undoubtedly stupid, but I'm not sure they are.
a group of my cousin's grandfather was a traveling hellfire and damnation revival meeting preacher that worked texas. my aunt and her 2 sisters were the musical entertainment whose grade school was the back of the new every year cadillac they traveled across texas in. the only charity his church ever performed was the token offer of purchasing groceries for the poorest white family in town before the town officials, as a way to gain a free or reduced rate indoor venue or access to the local park on saturday night. my aunt finally escaped when she was 18 and married my uncle right after WWII. she got her red lipstick and red heels and never set foot in a church again, except for weddings and funerals. she was an old school racist, but a fabulous cook and her xmas eve spread was the family highlight of the year. her weakness was coca-cola, a rare treat for me as a child, and I remember being at their house once when the coke truck pulled up and wheeled a dolly of wooden coke cases into her garage, the pinnacle of luxurious living in my eyes. her dad finally retired and bought a home with the cash he made from selling the gold coins he had picked and stashed from the collection plates over the years. I remember him from the instances of trying to exert his past power over us as kids, and my cousins all ignoring him. he still drove a new cadillac every year until he died.
IMO anyone that gives their money to prosperity gospel preachers are fucking morons ...
My uncle ended up on disability, riding around the small town of Clendenin, WV on an electric wheelchair, bumming free meals at the now-extinct Dairy Queen from anybody foolish enough to let him mooch, while my aunt worked well past what should have been her retirement age to pay the bills. She nearly died from a cardiac arrest, and still went back to work to support his ass. He'd preach to anybody who would listen, too, and use his "man of God" routine to assist him in his panhandling.
When another of my uncles passed from lung cancer, his oldest son announced that the false preacher would NOT be speaking at the funeral. Sort of a pre-emptive strike. Some in the family were pissed, but kudos to him, as far as I'm concerned. No need to keep the peace with hypocritical child-molesting moochers or those who support them.
I wholeheartedly agree.
a few decades earlier than that, and further south of you, were some of my relatives most likely handling snakes, drinking poison, and humping their cousins at church socials ...
Snake handlers. A fun bunch.
Perhaps that's why they have such an affinity with Donald Trump.
Great ad for Talarico just started airing in Texas, following a friend of Paxton's number one contributor, completing a plea deal, no registration,
one day jail sentence for the serial rape of an 8 year old boy for two years.
Talarico calls out Paxton for letting a pedophile go free after one day in jail - Daily Kos
Hoffman was added to the Nebraska sex offenders list.
Fact Check: Texas AG Ken Paxton's office let man accused of child sex abuse receive short jail term
Good grief. Talarico calls out Paxton for letting child molesters go with the tiniest slap on the wrist, and the only thing Paxton can come up with is to accuse Talarico of being a vegan?
What the hell?
Wife was vegan, never could get behind it myself, I have incisors for a reason.
I eat meat, but I don't see any reason other than health NOT to be a vegan. Certainly not any reason that should affect one's fitness for public office, unlike a prosecutor who's too damn lazy (or worse) to keep a repeat child molester behind bars for more than 24 hours.
My doc actually suggested it last time I saw her.. My triglycerides are sky high, but I declined. I have increased my veggies.... Found a new recipe, take cherry maters, cut them in half, cover with olive oil, Mrs. Dash and a bit of salt? Yummy...
But seriously, if being vegan is the worst that Paxon has on Talarico? He should win easily, time will tell.
My cholesterol tends to run a bit high, and years ago, I went on what was basically a Mediterranean diet. Very little in the way of red meat. Lean chicken, lots of veggies, olive oil. Not much dairy. Nothing fried, but I didn't eat many fried foods, anyway. I didn't mind skipping steak and bacon, and I've always eaten a lot of veggies, but I really missed cheese and butter. Months later, it had only dropped a few points, and I was pretty cranky. My HDLs never increased a jot, even though I was working out like a gym rat. My provider at the time floated the idea of a statin, and I declined, and went back to eating like I had before, with more moderate amounts of dairy. So now my cholesterol and triglycerides are still a bit high, but I'm happier.
And a Commie who will sell out and "disassemble" Texas, I kid you not.
It's like a high school election based on stupidity and fear mongering.
oh and a trans lover who voted against Texas laws restricting Trans persons rights. Talerico said It was the job of all elected officials to protect the rights of everyone, even trans kids and adults.
But the Paxton campaign is running border line perverse ads that are just lies.
Sad.
Red meat isn't too bad if its "Grass Fed". (But that's usually pretty expensive).
Or Bison, which in most cases is "Grass Fed".
If this is being vegan than call me a vegan too.
Newsflash, Talarico isn't vegan and never was, but Paxton is as bad as we all know he is and let a pedophile go after 1 day in jail. What a world we live in where the choice between the two is apparently a difficult decision for supposedly non-pedophile patriotic Americans to make.
Years ago I took a class in Vegan cooking at a Whole Foods store.. The teacher had been a chef at a very upscale restaurant.
AS we were leaving the classroom I asked if he didn't sometimes miss eating meat.
His answer surprised me a bit. He liked meat but didn't find it all that hard to give up.
What he did find challenging was giving up gourmet cheeses!
at a very upscale restaurant.
(He had been a chef at Le Bernardin)
his prayer - "dear lord, thank you for putting me in the white part of a southern prison where child molesting is accepted as biblical heritage."
Reminds me of Jimbob Duggar and his wonderful son Josh.
both staunch trump supporters, go figure ...
And a Commie who will sell out and "disassemble" Texas, I kid you not.
It's like a high school election based on stupidity and fear mongering.
oh and a trans lover who voted against Texas laws restricting Trans persons rights. Talerico said It was the job of all elected officials to protect the rights of everyone, even trans kids and adults.
But the Paxton campaign is running border line perverse ads that are just lies.
Sad.
~SIGH~ That's all I have.
I know. It's really discouraging how brazenly they are embracing such people, because they don't really think it will harm their chances of winning elections.
Last night The Paxton campaign started running an ad that says his office prosecuted a couple pimping out a 14 yar old girl in a hotel.
The man got life and the woman got 20 years.
They also took down the website that made the "dates".
And...?
Do the idiots here not realize that was his job? More correctly,
It doesn't excuse his adultery, embezzlement, abuse of power, impeachment or character failures
Heck, in some areas that will help them win elections
.
he's owning the libs for texas. I bet his future ex is excited to learn about her potential windfall(s) ...
God must be pissed! He’s going to do something about this … any day now … it’s going to be epic … yawn
they don't want no sex education in public schools. their heritage demands it be left to their family members and spiritual leaders ...