Pastor going to court on gun charges

A local minister accused of illegally carrying a weapon will have his first day in court next week.

The Rev. Randy Coleman, 38, of Alexandria, is scheduled for arraignment at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Campbell District Court.

The pastor of Christ Baptist Church in Cold Spring faces two counts of carrying a concealed weapon, court records show.

Coleman did not return a phone call from The Post Thursday evening.

Cold Spring police were dispatched to the Mr. Spotless Car Wash about 12:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, according to the police report.

Earl Miller, of Demossville, had told dispatchers that a man was loading a handgun in his car there.

“It was a 911 call to our communications center,” Cold Spring Police Chief Ed Burk said. “The complainant felt threatened.”

When officers arrived, they found a car that matched the description Miller gave, and Coleman at the wheel.

According to the police report, they asked him if he had any weapons, and he told them he had a handgun in his briefcase/laptop case.

Lt. Virgil Hall searched the case and found two loaded handguns, a Glock 9mm and an RG .25-caliber model.

Cold Spring Police Chief Ed Burk said he thought the Glock belonged to Coy Cox, a retired Newport police officer now working for the Boone County sheriff’s office.

Cox declined comment Thursday.

Coleman told police he was in line for the car wash when Miller cut in front of him.

He told police he advised Miller: “Someone could get shot over this,” according to the police report.

Miller told police he saw Coleman loading a handgun.

Officers charged Coleman with carrying a concealed weapon because he did not have a permit for the guns that were found, Burk said.

Police told Miller that if her wished, he could pursue other charges with Campbell County Attorney Justin Verst. Under Kentucky law, officers can’t charge people with misdemeanors that they don’t witness.

Coleman was booked into the Campbell County Detention Center, but released later on Christmas Eve.

Christ Baptist was born in the throes of another preacher’s troubles - those of the Rev. Larry Davis, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Cold Spring, who is now serving a 30-month federal prison sentence for stealing more than $500,000 from his congregation.

In early 2004, when the first inklings that Davis had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in church funds surfaced, about 300 members left the church. They began meeting for Sunday services a few miles north of First Baptist in the church’s former sanctuary. The congregation incorporated itself as Christ Baptist in April 2004.

Coleman, the unanimous choice of the church’s pastor search committee, became the pastor that fall.

The Tennessee native did three years of undergraduate work at the University of Tennessee and then graduated from Crichton College, a small Christian school in Memphis. He earned a master of divinity degree from the Mid American Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis, and for five years pastored the Immanuel Baptist Church in Marion, Ark., near Memphis.

His first task in Cold Spring was to help members of his flock heal from their split from First Baptist.

“People have been very hurt,” he told The Post then. “Unfortunately it’s come about because of a pastor, and that saddens me.”

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