Former Calvary Baptist Church music minister Britt Taylor has been sentenced to 20 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to a federal charge of transferring obscene material to a minor. Under a plea agreement, the judge also ordered three years of supervised release. Taylor was fired by the Horn Lake church in January 2025 after he told leaders he had engaged in online sexual misconduct.
Plea and sentence
According to Fox13 Memphis, Taylor entered his guilty plea and was sentenced on Feb. 1 under a deal that called for 20 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He is scheduled to turn himself in to federal custody on April 1, 2026.
How investigators say it happened
Prosecutors say that in December 2024, Taylor used his phone to send an explicit image to someone he believed was a 16-year-old. The person on the other end, they say, was actually an undercover law-enforcement officer. Federal agents later seized an Apple iPhone, and a federal grand jury returned an indictment in March 2025, according to Baptist Press.
Church response and expert reaction
Calvary Baptist Church said in a public statement that leaders terminated Taylor after his confession and that they have been cooperating with investigators. A licensed school psychologist, Dr. Karen Streeter, told Fox13 Memphis that abuse involving a trusted adult can significantly magnify the harm to children, since the betrayal cuts through what is supposed to be a safe relationship.
Federal law and what the charge means
Taylor pleaded guilty to violating the federal statute that makes it illegal to transfer obscene matter to someone under 16 using interstate commerce, a law that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. The statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1470, also allows prosecutors to bring charges even when the “minor” is an undercover officer, a feature that appears frequently in online-sting prosecutions.
Next steps
The plea resolves the federal indictment returned in March 2025, and court records show Taylor is due to report to federal custody on April 1, 2026. Once he begins serving his sentence, the case will shift into routine supervision and reporting tied to the plea agreement and the court’s conditions for his three-year term of supervised release.
