Victory Christian Centers Employ PR Firm to 'Manage' Allegations Sex Abuse Cover Up
The leaders of Victory Christian Center are now trying to repair some of those unfavorable decisions they made in the allegations of sexual abuse of a 13 year old girl on their church campus by alleged church employees.
Five church officials are facing charges for delaying as long as two weeks to report the girl's suspected rape.
Some have said that the church did what they could in this instance to handle the allegations at hand. We agree that they tackled the issues by speaking with the victim and suspects. We even agree that firing the said suspects showed their willingness to combat against any other attacks and showed responsibility. What we do not agree with is:
- having a 13 year old address this issue without her parents present
- not involving or notifying the parents of this discussion with their affected child
- firing suspects (in so many ways doing their own investigation) without proper police involvement
- Only contacting the parents and authorities TWO WEEKS after their investigation.
This was a criminal investigation and should have been given to the local authorities to handle. The church made steps to correct but it was beyond their jurisdiction.
As reported last week, John and Charica Daugherty, two ministers at Victory Christian, filed motions to have the case against them dropped. They are claiming that they were not responsible for the girl or her rapist while they were on the campus, and therefore cannot be charged with failing to report child abuse.
The Christian Post reported:
The firm is the Tulsa-based Schnake Turnbo Franke PR. The account executive who is handling the Victory case is Jarrod Kopp. On the firm's website, Kopp's biography says "there’s no telling what he’ll pull from his bag of tricks." Kopp can be reached at 918-277-1189 or 918-430-3011.We are afraid of what 'tricks' they will use, God forbid.
Source
"Instead of spending tens of thousands of donated dollars to dodge, deflect and deceive, church officials should spend that money on ensuring that kids are safe” said Barbara Dorris of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
“Basically, almost every step that Victory Christian has in this horrible situation was the wrong one,” said Dorris. “Instead of protecting kids and helping police, they are protecting themselves and hiring PR people.”
"Police and prosecutors say serious child sex crimes and cover ups happened at Victory Christian. This is time for being honest, protecting kids and healing victims, not time for using gimmicks or PR 'magic',” said Dorris.
