Former Spring pastor sentenced to 35 years in child trafficking case

A Harris County jury convicted former Spring pastor Damien Deon Blevins of continuous trafficking of a child, and the court sentenced him to 35 years in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors said the case reached across more than a decade and involved a man who used his position in a congregation to prey on children.

Blevins served as pastor of Deep Water Ministries in Spring. Prosecutors said the abuse began in 2010 with a child who was among the church’s earliest members, then continued with two other children from May 2019 through May 2023. The victims described abuse that happened both inside the church and at Blevins’s home, and one survivor testified that he threatened them.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office said the case was the first continuous trafficking of a child prosecution it had successfully taken to trial since the Texas statute took effect in 2011. That makes the sentence more than a single punishment for one defendant. It marks a rare courtroom use of a law built for repeated abuse and for offenders who exploit trust over time.

The DA’s Crimes Against Children Division handles cases involving trusted adults such as ministers, long-term abuse, and cases with multiple victims. That description fits the allegations in this case, where a pastor’s authority inside a Spring church became the vehicle for abuse that prosecutors said lasted for years. The result leaves behind a conviction that is as much about institutional failure as it is about one man’s crimes.

For families in Spring and other Harris County church communities, the case shows how deeply abuse can hide behind standing, familiarity and religious authority. The conviction and 35-year sentence close one chapter in the case, but they also set a precedent for prosecutors using the county’s child-exploitation tools against adults who manipulate trust to target children.