Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Pray the Gay Away' Pastor Faces Teen Boy Sex Crimes Charges

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Alan Manning Chambers, 54, faces three felony charges involving allegations that he solicited a 14-year-old boy for sex on social media. An Orange County Sheriff's detective wrote in an affidavit that he posed as a teenage boy and messaged with Chambers about meeting for sex. Chambers was a minister at Exodus International until 2013 where he advocated for conversion therapy. But after the church closed, Chambers campaigned against the practice. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/crimefix to get an extra 25 cents bonus for every gallon on your first tank of gas.Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Dave Aronberg https://www.instagram.com/davearonberg/CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm Alan Chambers. I'm the vice president of operations. Alan Chambers was open about a lot of things, his job, his faith. But detectives say there was something he wasn't being so open about. And according to their report, that something has now been exposed. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. Before I get into this really disturbing case, I want to tell you about an app that I've been using that I really like. It's called Upside.

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cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. Alan Chambers is a sharp-dressed man, someone who has become an unlikely figure in LGBTQ spaces, an avid runner and a businessman. But behind the tailored suits and social media posts, detectives in Florida, say Alan Chambers is a man with a dark secret. A man who they say spends his time on the internet talking to people he believes are teenage boys. And what is so shocking about these allegations is the fact that Alan Chambers was once a minister. More on that and the type of counseling that Chambers used to offer here in a bit with former state attorney Dave Arrenberg. There are a lot of

layers to this one, and it's really disturbing. The ick factor here is really high, so I'm warning you. Buckle up. Detectives with the Orange County Sheriff's Office in Orlando, Florida, began investigating Allen Chambers in February. That's when a detective started chatting with a person online who identified himself as John David, the CEO of a fashion company. Those detectives say John David was actually Alan Chambers. Chambers is the vice president of operations for an upscale men's clothing company. company in the greater Orlando area. A detective posing as a 14-year-old boy says he started chatting with chambers on Snapchat, but then that conversation moved over to Telegram after the user claimed his Google

account was hacked. The detective wrote, on Telegram, this user asked me if I was a, quote, top or, quote, bottom. Throughout our interactions on Telegram, this user informed me that they hosted a large dinner party and went to see Scream 7 with their 20. year old daughter. They later told me that they had two adult children. They also told me that they wanted to, quote, make love with me, feel our bodies together, and meet and kiss. The detective said that the conversations with Alan Chambers continued into March. He wrote, on March 7, this user stated,

Wish I was waking up with you next to me. Also on March 7th, they asked me if I wanted something long term with them and asked if I only wanted sex and to lose your virginity before stating that they feel very attracted to you. On March 9th, 2026, I told this user that I was feeling sick and they responded, need daddy to come take care of you? And stated, rub your back, hold you close. I responded affirmatively, and they said, though I think we'd end up making love. A day after that exchange, the detective said Alan Chambers wrote that he deleted the messages he'd exchanged with the user he thought was a 14-year-old boy, but later sent photos. And those photos were of a bald, middle-aged white male. There are more messages about sex that I won't go into. The detective said the messages about meeting continued into April. The affidavit states, on April 10, 2026, at approximately 1,100 hours, they messaged me and said that they were pulled over on Interstate 4. They later messaged me and asked if I could take an Uber and meet them near their office on Park Avenue in Winter Park. They also sent me a picture of their office showing a brown table on a unique carpet.

On April 12, 26, this user told me that they wanted to be with me and they wanted to make love in their house. This user continued to express concern that they could get caught and said that they really wanted me to be real. On April 16th, this user messaged me that they were, quote, horny. On April 17th, this user messaged me that they were laying in their bed and that they wished I was there before. Now, if the ick factor on these conversations wasn't high enough already, it gets even worse. There are quotes about wanting to kiss, have sex, and more explicit descriptions of what that would entail. The detective served search warrants and subpoenas for the accounts and IP addresses associated with the Google account related to the investigation. The detective said a Google account was registered to

Allen Manning Chambers and a Google Pay account was registered under his wife's name. The detectives wrote that one of the accounts they had investigated was used to connect with male sex workers. On May 19th, Orange County detectives made their move. They took Allen Chambers into custody and they said that he agreed to speak with them. The detective wrote about this conversation. He currently lives with his wife and two children. Alan identified his phone number. When I asked about his social media, he told me that he had a telegram account and identified the username as Alex WP74. When I asked him about the Snapchat account, JDWP50, he confirmed that was his. When I asked Alan if he communicated with any children, he told me that he communicates with one who he identified as who was 14 years old. and who he met on Snapchat. When I asked him what they discussed, he told me that they discussed meeting, but would not specify to do what.

When I asked Alan further questions, he told me that he would rather not say anymore. I told you earlier that Alan Chambers used to be a minister, and he was. I'm going to get into that, and the twisted history behind that, but first. I want to bring in Dave Aaronberg. He is the former state attorney for Palm Beach County, also currently a defense attorney and the host of the MK True Crime Show. That is on Megan Kelly's True Crime Network. You can watch that on YouTube.

So, Dave, thanks for coming on. I thought you'd be the perfect person to discuss this since you've been on both sides of the aisle in the courtroom. My first thought to you or my first question to you, I want to talk about these charges. We have this guy, Alan Chambers, who's got this crazy background, round we're also going to dig into.

Charged with solicitation of a minor, obscene material distribution. He's accused of sending naked photos of himself to this person he thought was a teenage boy, an unlawful use of a two-way communication device. I mean, this is a guy who's a prominent guy in the community who says, he campaigned against being gay for a long time, and now he's charged with soliciting a minor for, sexual activity with another male who he thought was a teenage boy. Thoughts on this. Hypocrisy is an awful thing and it really hurts in the court of public opinion. It's the one thing

people really can't stand from anyone, politicians, from their criminal defendants when you say one thing and do another. Now, in a court of law, you can limit the hypocrisy. You can keep all that stuff out and just be a regular anonymous defendant in front of the jury and they don't know that you're a pastor who fought against, well, who fought for conversion therapy. And now it depends, though, whether he'll take the stand and it depends on what the defense is because it limits the defense. So my take is the hypocrisy is what makes this story so interesting. But in a court of law, it won't really come in unless the defense opens the door and allows the prosecution to show that he's a liar, he's a hypocrite, and he should be found guilty.

And right now, he's charged with going online and soliciting sex from somebody he thought was a 14-year-old boy. It was actually the person the cops say he's talking to was a cop, a cop posing as a 14-year-old boy. How much trouble is he in for transmitting photographs, nude photos of himself, to somebody he thought was a 14-year-old boy? year old boy. Oh, he is in a whole lot of trouble. These are three third-degree felonies, each of them punishable up to five years in prison. He won't get that. That's the maximum. But you could run those sentences consecutively instead of concurrently. So the three charges are solicitation of a minor via computer, third-degree felony, transmission of harmful material to minors, third-degree felony,

and the unlawful use of a two-way communication device. So he's facing a whole lot of pain here. I think his defense will try to say that he had no intent to actually meet anyone. He was just talking about what he likes, and he's got First Amendment rights to talk about what he likes, as opposed to actually taking steps to meet these children. On the other hand, he did take steps to meet the children. That's where his defense is going to collapse. I mean, he had multiple meeting dates set up. He gave explicit instructions to the so-called minor, who wasn't really a minor, to prepare for the sexual activity.

And he provided his real business address for a rendezvous point, not smart. Right. And the cops, you know, they move in on him on May 19th. And what they wrote in the affidavit makes it sound like this guy said, yeah, I talked to a 14-year-old on telegram. Yeah, I do. But he wouldn't say why he was talking to the person. Well, they, of course, know according to everything we read in the affidavit. And, of course, these are allegations at this point in time.

Let's dig in now to the next layer of this story. Alan Chambers used to be a minister. He was a minister at a church that is now closed. It closed in 2013. It was called Exodus International. And Alan Chambers, who is married to a woman and has two children, was offering what's called conversion therapy. And critics of that call it pray the gay away.

And this is a type of therapy where religious figures try to coach people who are gay to not be gay anymore and convince them that they might not be gay or trans and things of that nature. It's very controversial. You know, I covered a case back in Ohio years ago where a young person, ended up ending it all because they went through conversion therapy and couldn't take it anymore. I mean, there are laws enacted against conversion therapy. And so his church closed in 2013. And he then started campaigning against conversion therapy.

This adds a whole new, it might not be relevant in a court of law to what he is charged with, but this adds a whole new layer to what he was accused. are doing online. Yeah, by the way, the Supreme Court, they overruled a lot of these statutes that ban conversion therapy, saying it's First Amendment protected. If you want to go there and try to preach the praying of the gay away, then you can do so, even though it's quackery, but the Supreme Court is allowing it. So they exist out there.

These places still exist. And it does show a level of hypocrisy here. Now, apparently he did this and then he turned against it. So he's there. He's against it. And here's a guy who's clearly fighting within himself because he's living a lie. And he's married. And then he puts out suspicious social media posts that could be interpreted as coming out.

And I just, you know, you hope for people like this, they just stop living the lie and be who they are. But here, it's not just about him. It's about what he tried to do to others, to young people who. didn't exist, but who thought were young teenagers who he wanted to have sexual relations with. That's when it becomes a crime. You can do whatever you want behind closed doors pretty much, as long as it's consensual. But when you start trying to take advantage of young people, it's a crime even if those young people are undercover cops. The conversion therapy aspect of this is really something that is crazy to me. And I want to put up

one of his posts. This one's from 2019. We dug up this post. And it almost sounds like he, we kind of took this as, is he saying that he is kind of gay? This is as far back as 2019. I've spent my entire life wrestling with all things God, gay, and church. At age 47, I still find deep conflict and tension in my understanding and application of scripture and how that interacts with my own story and the hundreds of stories I hear from those who contact me monthly for support, encouragement, and a lifeline. His own story. So it seems to me that he, I mean, what story is he talking about? And he posts it with, you know, hashtag faithfully LGBT and then a rainbow thing with a cross on it. It almost sounds like he's saying like, I've

struggled with myself for a really long time. Do you interpret it that way as well, Dave? Yeah, that's what I was referring to, Ingenet, is that he clearly has had internal struggles. And it's interesting because around the time of that post, he's still out there pushing conversion therapy. So he doesn't know which way he's going here. And that's okay.

There are a lot of people who share in his internal strife. but at the same time, you don't involve children. And that's where it steps over line to becoming a crime. And hypocrisy is going to make jurors hate him if it comes in. Normally, you just can't bring in character to prove that you did this. But character evidence can come in if it involves impeachment. So if his defense lawyers get up and say, he's a man of God, he's done some good work, okay, you just open the door to character evidence on the other side about how he's a hypocrite.

So that's where the defense is sort of constraint. They can't really lean on his background to say, look, he's been involved in the community. They pretty much have to keep him off the stand and pretty much just have to listen as the prosecution buries them with their evidence. Yeah, and I want to be clear here. you know, he's accused of targeting or trying to target a child, a teenager, or sex. But it has nothing to do with being gay. You know, and I want people to realize we're not conflating the two here.

This is like a predatory thing. The allegations here that he's doing something predatory with somebody he thinks is a child, which is a crime. That's right. So I want to be clear about that. the Orange County Sheriff's Office wants people to contact them because they believe there could be other victims out there. In the affidavit, it says that there was an account used to contact male sex workers. And so they, but they, it sounds like they think this account or these accounts that Allen Chambers may have been contacting other teenagers, other young people and doing things with other young people. What are your thoughts on that as a former prosecutor?

Well, I had a unit in my office, the special victims unit and SVU where it's rare that someone who does something like this will just stop at one. It's rarely their first time. It's just their first time getting caught. So I'm not surprised that there are potentially other victims out there and that this is not the first time that he tried this. So very normal, very typical. This is a guy who's fighting with himself and has apparently been doing this to others for some time. Now let's flip the script and talk about the defense side of this. How do you defend this?

Well, I only recently became a defense lawyer. It was much easier to prosecute these cases. I'll tell you what they're going to try to do. The defense is going to try to focus on intent. I mentioned this earlier. He's going to say that this was just aspirational. It just fantasy play. Right.

That's really, of course, then why'd you take overt steps towards a meeting? He also had confessions after the traffic stop before he was read as Miranda rights. He made some critical admissions. So maybe as a defense lawyer, you tried to get those thrown out saying that he should have been Mirandized at that time because those are really damning. where he confirmed that he owned those Snapchat and telegram accounts. He confirmed his phone numbers. He knew he was communicating with a 14-year-old. I mean, those are just damning admissions.

If you can get that thrown out, you'd have a chance in this case. So that's where I would go as a defense lawyer. But I think the best play here for him is to try to get a settlement, try to do a plea deal, and just throw yourself onto the mercy of the court. Yeah, and, you know, he has a really good job, too, with a high-end clothing store, kind of wondering what's going to happen with that. I mean, because it's a pretty fancy clothing store chain. I'm wondering if they're going to say bye-bye.

We'll have to wait to see. Yeah, but that's the least of his problems. I mean, yeah, I think he'll get fired from his job. But his bigger problem is that he can become a resident of the state wearing an orange jumpsuit in a pair of steel bracelets for years to come. True. That is the bigger issue here. Dave Aaronberg, thank you so much. Thank you, Internet.

I told you earlier that Alan Chambers was the VP of operations at a swanky local clothing retail chain. He was also head of a local business district, but after this, not anymore. The Park Avenue District issued a statement. Part of it reads, The Park Avenue District and its leadership are committed to maintaining the trust of our community,

businesses, residents, and visitors. While this matter is unrelated to the organization or its work, we take situations involving allegations of this nature extremely seriously. Alan Chambers was released from the Orange County Jail after he appeared in court and posted bail. The Orange County Sheriff's Office is asking for more information about Allen Chambers because the detectives there believe there are more victims. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.