A Buddhist monk was arrested in Nashville Thursday for sex crimes committed against a fifteen-year-old.
Sayasith Sitthipanyo, fifty-seven, is a monk at the Lao Xaoput Buddhist Temple in Nashville. There, Nashville police say he engaged in unlawful physical contact with a minor and showed pornography to the teenager multiple times between February and May.
He was charged with seven counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and eight counts of displaying sex acts to a minor. Sitthipanyo was imprisoned under a $220,000 bond.
He hired the boy in 2017 to work at the temple.
Anyone with information on other potential victims is asked to contact the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s Youth Services Division at 615-862-7417.
