Day: April 27, 2014
SEX ABUSE LAWSUIT: SOVEREIGN GRACE LETTER ANALYZED BY BRENT DETWILER
Posted: 25 Apr 2014 11:40 AM PDT
Mark Mitchell, the executive pastor for Covenant Life Church, sent a letter to all the members on Tuesday providing an update on the civil lawsuit and the upcoming criminal trial of Nathaniel Morales. In this post, I provide a running commentary on that letter.
I’ve interspersed my comments throughout the correspondence. The letter and the lawsuit timeline provided are in bold letters to distinguish them from my commentary. ## From: Mark Mitchell – Covenant Life Church Date: April 22, 2014 6:59:48 PM EDT To: Church Members Subject: Lawsuit Update Dear Church, We are writing to report on the status of the civil lawsuit against the church. As with many legal matters, the suit continues to play out very slowly. (At the end of this letter we have included a timeline to orient you to the history to date.) The lawsuit is also against Sovereign Grace Ministries, Sovereign Grace Church of Fairfax, and ten individual Defendants including C.J. Mahaney, Gary Ricucci, John Loftness and Grant Layman. The lawsuit “continues to play out very slowly” – so do the criminal investigations. We are about 18 months into the process so far. Although the Montgomery County Circuit Court dismissed the claims against all Defendants in May of 2013, the case was then appealed. The hearing of the Appeal is scheduled for early June in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals; the ruling could come weeks or months or even a year later. The Original Complaint (lawsuit) was filed on October 17, 21012. “The Montgomery County Court” is a reference to one judge, Sharon V. Burrell, not a Grand Jury or some other group of individuals. Burrell “dismissed the claims” but not because they lacked merit. Even SGM made note of this fact in their “Update on the Amended Civil Lawsuit” on May 20, 2103. “Please note that this ruling does not specifically address the substance of the plaintiffs’ allegations.” Burrell dismissed the lawsuit because 9 victims waited too long to file the lawsuit per the statute of limitations in Maryland and because 2 victims were from Virginia. None of the specific claims or factual allegations were dismissed because they lacked merit. There are good reasons for the Appeal. Here are a few. One, there should be no statute of limitations pertaining to sexual abuse. It is a bad law. It can take a long time before a victim is ready to come forward. Some are so traumatized they never come forward. Such statutes have been removed in other states. The Appeal hopes to get this law overturned in Maryland. Two, getting rid of the statute of limitations will let the Maryland victims proceed to trial where they can make their case against C.J. Mahaney, John Loftness, Gary Ricucci, Grant Layman, Charlie Llewellyn, Stephen Griney, Mark Hoffman, Dave Mayo, David Adams, et al. All these men proclaim their innocence. Let them prove it before a jury as victims, witnesses, and evidence testify against them. These alleged abusers and conspirators need to stand trial where they are cross examined under oath. Three, the conspiracy to cover up sex abuse was not discovered until August 2011. The abuses occurred over 30 years but the evidence did not materialize until recently. Therefore, the statute of limitations should not apply. The conspiracy also continues. See for example, Factual Allegation 179. Fourth, the alleged conspiracy was interstate but centered in Maryland which argues against dismissal based on jurisdiction. The Plaintiffs lawyers are working pro bono. They would not be investing their time and money in the long appeal process if they were not hopeful of victory. Everyone should pray the Appeal is successful. Meanwhile, the independent investigation that Covenant Life has commissioned is ongoing. We are roughly at the halfway mark in its completion. Anyone who has information that may be relevant to the investigation is still invited to e-mail that information, or just their contact information and the general nature of what they would like to convey, to the e-mail address established for this investigation: CLCInvestigation@TL-LawFirm.com On August 28, 2013, Joshua Harris wrote a letter to CLC in which he said,
“At the June 23 [2013] Members Meeting, I shared that we had decided to commission an investigation into the issues raised in the civil lawsuit against our church. … After sharing our intention with the congregation on June 23, we proceeded to retain the nationally recognized, independent law firm of Thaler Liebeler LLP to do this work. … The investigation will probably be accomplished in a matter of months.”
Thaler Liebeler began its investigation in July 2013. That was ten months ago. Now Mark Mitchell tells us, “We are roughly at the halfway mark in its completion.” That means “the issues raised in the civil lawsuit against our church” will take approximately 20 months to investigate. But wait a minute. I thought everyone was innocent! What’s to investigate? Initially, Joshua said the investigation would “probably be accomplished in a matter of months.” A matter of months has turned into 20 months.
“Basically, this means opening up our actions, policies and procedures, especially those that relate to child protection, to scrutiny. … The way the appeal process unfolds will be key in determining the best time to share the results of the investigation. But we’re committed to learning and applying all we can from the investigation and communicating its results at the earliest appropriate date.”
I don’t think the “actions” of the pastors, the “specifics of the suit” or “the results” of the investigation will ever be shared with Covenant Life Church. Why? Because many of these findings incriminate the pastors, abusers, and conspirators. I expect Thaler Liebeler will produce a whitewashed report like Ambassadors of Reconciliation did for Sovereign Grace Ministries. A few slaps on the wrist but certainly no information that could be used to prosecute these men or put abusers and conspirators in jail.
“At the conclusion of your investigation will you be sharing all your findings with Covenant Life Church? In other words, do you intend to share incriminating evidence with the public that could result in fines or jail time for CLC employees (e.g. Grant Layman), former employees (e.g. C.J. Mahaney, John Loftness, Gary Ricucci, Stephen Griney), or current members (e.g. Mark Hoffman, Dave Mayo, Charlie Llewellyn)?”
“Will you be sharing all the evidence you discover as you discover it with the Montgomery County Police Department (e.g. Detective Sally Magee)? Or do plan to withhold that information from law enforcement under attorney-client privilege?”
I copied the second question to law enforcement. In retrospect, I don’t think any of the information shared with Thaler Liebeler is covered under attorney-client privilege. Certainly, people at large who provide evidence of crimes to Thaler Liebeler are not clients.
“On Monday [February 4] news reports were widely circulated about a Nevada man, Nathaniel Morales, who has been charged in Maryland with molesting boys during the 1980s. … Contrary to the impression left by the news reports, Covenant Life Church had no knowledge of such abuse until many years after the abuse when an adult who had been victimized as a child came forward.”
This was a blatant lie. I will deal with it in a future post. |