NEW BRAUNFELS (TX)
San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted: 06/25/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Roger Croteau
Express-News Staff Writer
NEW BRAUNFELS — The former senior pastor at this city's largest church tried to break up the marriage of two church members, then engaged in a sexual relationship with the woman, according to a lawsuit against the church filed Friday in San Antonio.
Pastor Mike Fehlauer resigned from the 4,000-member Tree of Life Evangelical Church in March and reportedly now lives in Colorado. Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.
In a stunning hourlong sermon delivered in April by Ted Haggard, president of the 30 million-memberAbuse Tracker Association of Evangelicals, church members were told Fehlauer had admitted to "sexual misconduct" with a married woman and resigned at the urging of Tree of Life officials.
At the time, the woman, Angela Benson, told the Express-News the church "as a whole, handled the situation with integrity, graciousness and did a wonderful job."
But she's changed her mind, accusing the church of treating Fehlauer like he was the victim by giving him $60,000 to relocate, while offering her family nothing.
She and her husband, Steve Benson, claim the church was negligent in hiring and supervising Fehlauer, who they say had a well-known history of sexual addiction. The suit seeks unspecified compensation for medical costs,