Editor’s note: Information from the trial was shared courtesy of Sara Vanden Berge with Beneath the Surface News. The following story contains information that may be disturbing to readers.
A mistrial was declared last week after a jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the Ryan Ivy case.
Ivy, a former Bluff Dale youth minister and instructional aide, was charged with online solicitation of a minor after a string of sexually oriented messages he exchanged with a 13-year-old female Bluff Dale middle school student in July 2020.
On Wednesday, Dec. 13, the impaneled jury began deliberations and after more than five hours Judge Jason Cashon received a note that the jury could not come to a unanimous decision in the case.
Cashon called the jurors back into the courtroom and asked them to resume deliberations, but a decision could still not be reached.
The case began with jury selection on Monday, Dec. 11, followed by testimony on Tuesday, Dec. 12 and Wednesday, Dec. 13.
Called witnesses included: the victim, who is now 16years-old; Scott Pace, pastor of Bluff Dale First Baptist Church; former Bluff Dale ISD superintendent John Taylor; and Erath County Sheriff’s Office Lt. David Southerland.
Jury members were shown a string of text messages between Ivy and the victim that included talk of threeperson intercourse and oral sex. He reportedly ended several conversations by asking the minor to delete the conversations.
Pace, the pastor of Bluff Dale Baptist Church, testified that in July 2020 Ivy told him he had engaged in inappropriate messages with a minor. Pace said he never asked to see the messages between Ivy and the victim and refused to accept Ivy’s offer to resign.
His employment as youth minister continued following the conversation.
Ivy resigned from the school district after telling the superintendent that a female minor student had sent him a sexual message via electronic media.
In 2015, the Texas Legislature changed the statute regarding online solicitation of a minor after the old statute was struck down by the Court of Criminal Appeals as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
The current statute states: “A person who is 17 years of age or older commits an offense if, with the intent to commit an offense listed in Article 62.001(5) (A), (B), or (K), Code of Criminal Procedure, the person, over the Internet, by electronic mail or text message or other electronic message service or system, or through a commercial online service, intentionally: communicates in a sexually explicit manner with a minor; or (2) distributes sexually explicit material to a minor.”
Essentially, the legislature added a clause that a subject must intend to commit a sexual offense in person.
Mistrials are not common in Erath County and this is only the second time in more than 11 years that a mistrial has occurred.
The case has been reset on the court docket for June, according to District Attorney Alan Nash.