By Bob Allen
Maryland’s highest court of appeal declined Sept. 22 to review what has been described as largest evangelical sex-abuse case to date, leaving intact lower-court decisions dismissing the class-action lawsuit on legal technicalities.
The Court of Appeals, the highest tribunal in Maryland, declined without comment to review a June 26 decision by the Court of Special Appeals dismissing Doe v. Sovereign Grace Ministries.
The lawsuit, originally filed in October 2012 in Montgomery County, Md., alleged a culture of enabling and covering up pedophilia in churches associated with Sovereign Grace Ministries, a Calvinistic church-planting network based in Louisville, Ky.
Special Court of Appeals Judge Deborah Eyler ruled that a group of alleged abuse victims and their families did not follow proper procedure in filing their appeal of an earlier dismissal in circuit court, and therefore her appellate court could not legally consider their argument.
In May 2013, Montgomery County Circuit Judge Sharon Burrell ruled that plaintiffs had missed a window of opportunity to sue for sexual abuse damages within three years of turning 18.
In their appeal, the plaintiffs said they were suing not over the abuse, per se, but alleged collusion by church leaders that didn’t come to light until 2011.
None of the decisions dealt with the truthfulness of allegations in a second amended class-action complaint filed May 14, 2013, alleging a conspiracy originating at a church in Maryland and spreading across the country in the “family” of SGM churches.
The 46-page complaint alleged in sometimes graphic detail the molestation of numerous boys and girls by multiple offenders and decisions by SGM leaders to discourage church members from reporting it to secular authorities and handle it internally as a matter of corrective church “discipline.”
Nathaniel Morales, 56, one of the alleged molesters in the civil lawsuit, was convicted Aug. 14 in criminal court and sentenced to 40 years in prison for abusing boys while working in youth ministries and leading Bible studies at SGM-affiliated Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md.
During testimony, Morales’ lawyer questioned former Covenant Life pastor Grant Layman about whether he withheld information from the police about the abuse allegations against his client.
“Did you have an obligation to report the alleged abuse?” public defender Alan Drew asked Layman during cross examination. “I believe so,” Layman said. “And you didn’t,” Drew responded. “No,” Layman said.
Mark Prater, executive director of Sovereign Grace Ministries, posted an open letter Oct. 9 denying “in the strongest terms possible” that any SGM leaders conspired to cover up sexual or physical abuse of children.
Prater added, however, that the ministry is reviewing child-protection policies in member churches and will offer child sexual abuse awareness training at a conference for pastors and church leaders later this month.
Susan Burke, the Baltimore attorney who represented the alleged victims in the Maryland lawsuit, said in June that similar litigation will be filed in Virginia in the “relatively near future.”
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