JERSEY CITY (NJ)
The Jersey Journal
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
By JARRETT RENSHAW
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
A court has ordered the longtime pastor of a Baptist church in Jersey City, and the church itself, to pay more than $100,000 to a former organ player who says the pastor sexually harassed him.
The ruling came after the pastor, the Rev. Sammie Lee Hawkins, left the courtroom during a hearing on the matter in August and did not return.
Hawkins, head of St. John's Baptist Church on Bramhall Avenue for 15 years, was accused by a former church employee of conducting a "campaign of sexual harassment" that drove him to quit his $33,000-a-year job as the church's organist in 2003.
Kevin Profit, who is married with children and now lives in Connecticut, alleges that he quit after Hawkins made numerous "lewd sexual comments" about his "sexual organs," as well as telling Profit that he wanted to have sex with him and "other men," according to court documents.
On May 28, 2003, Profit alleges Hawkins said he had a "fetish" for him, and that he "loved" him and "dreamed about him," according to court documents.