PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A former youth pastor at a church in Burlington County has been sentenced to 25 years in state prison for coaxing boys to send him sexually explicit pictures and videos, then blackmailing them.
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Sean Higgins, 32, of Palmyra, served as a youth pastor and music leader at Harbor Baptist Church and a teacher at the church’s private K-12 school in Hainesport.
He pleaded guilty earlier this year to endangering the welfare of children.
Investigators said in 2020, he pretended to be a teenage girl on Snapchat and sent photos to boys on the app. If they reciprocated, Higgins would screenshot the boy’s friends list, send that to the victim, and threaten to upload the images to those friends, unless the boy created new videos according to his demands.
Authorities said Higgins would often make the victims perform sexual acts on themselves, which he recorded.
Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia Bradshaw called Higgins’ crimes “among the cruelest, most depraved” she’s ever seen. She said some of the children considered taking their own lives after they were victimized.
Higgins was not charged with having physical contact with his victims, and none of the charges involved members of the church or students at the private school.
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