DALLAS (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By Darren Barbee
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Aaron Babb believes a single phone call to police 17 years ago would have changed his life: he might never have been sexually abused, attempted suicide or been awakened by his own screams.
If Dallas Theological Seminary officials had alerted authorities in 1988 -- when they learned that one of their students, Jon Gerrit Warnshuis, was accused of sexually molesting a 12- or 13-year-old boy -- Warnshuis might have gone to prison then.
Instead, Warnshuis was allowed to graduate from the seminary in 1992 and later became pastor of an Argyle church. In 2001, he was sentenced to prison for molesting Babb and other boys for years at Oak Hills Evangelical Free Church.
On Monday, Babb, 22, will seek to hold the seminary accountable in a Fort Worth courtroom. The case will test whether an institution that knew of his past abuse but granted Warnshuis a master's degree in theology is responsible for his actions.