Fourth Victim in Victory Christian Center Scandal Comes Forward
A fourth victim of alleged sexual abuse at the Tulsa megachurch, Victory Christian Center has come forward. The police said Tuesday that there might be a fifth victim.
Additional charges are now against one suspect Chris Denman, a former
church employee. Denman was arrested Sept. 5 on a complaint alleging that he
raped a 13-year-old girl in a stairwell on the ministry's campus in
August and molested a 15-year-old girl. He now faces new charges of making a
lewd proposal to a child and using a computer to commit a sex crime
involving a 12-year-old girl.
Another ex-church employee, 23-year-old Israel Castillo, was arrested last week and is charged with making a lewd proposal to a 15-year-old girl and using a computer to commit a sex crime.Tulsa Police Det. Cpl. Greg Smith told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that a third suspect could face charges related to alleged sexual abuse of a fifth victim. Two things are complicating that case, Smith said, because the victim's parents are uncooperative and the suspect is no longer in Tulsa."We're at a stalemate," Smith said. "The third suspect we haven't talked about because all we have to go on now is secondhand information."
On Friday,
the mother of the 13-year-old filed a lawsuit against the church,
alleging that officials attempted to cover up the incident to do "damage
control." The suit filed in Tulsa County District Court is seeking more
than $75,000, according to the complaint.
Tim Peterson, a Victory member, said other churches across the country should learn from what's happened here.
"It's a bad situation for the church to be on the front page of the paper every day, but there isn't a church within a 500-mile radius that doesn't know about this now."Every youth pastor knows now `If I suspect abuse, I need to report it,' because if you don't report this, you could end up being charged," Peterson said.
Another member, Pam
Tiernan, a member of the church for more than 30 years, praised Victory
Christian Center for being as transparent as possible regarding the
allegations against the former employees.
"That's how you heal," she said. "You don't sweep anything under the rug."
Source: The AP
