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	Seattle Woman Files Sex-Abuse Claim Against Pastor, Church Associated Press, carried in KGW [Seatle] June 12, 2007 http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8PN0L780.html A church with congregations nationwide was sued Monday by a Seattle woman who claims she was sexually abused as a child by one of its pastors here. The pastor, now 79, denied the accusations. Court documents filed in King County Superior Court allege that the Church of God in Christ, based in Memphis, Tenn., failed to protect the woman from Pastor Charles E. Smith. The church failed to properly investigate Smith's background, knew or should have known he was a pedophile, and failed to adequately supervise him, the lawsuit contends. The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, also names Smith, Smith's wife, Gloria, as well as Smith Temple, one of the church's congregations in Seattle where Smith ministered and that at the time was called Grace Chapel. Calls to the Church of God in Christ's general counsel in Mitchellville, Md., were not immediately returned Monday. However, Smith said in a telephone interview Monday night that news reports about the lawsuit were the first he'd heard of the allegations. Asked if he denied the woman's accusations, he replied, "Yes indeed. I know nothing of it." He said he is still pastor of a small congregation at Smith Temple. Court documents allege that Smith sexually molested the woman, now 53, "on numerous occasions in his car and in his office in the chapel." "Within the past year, (she) has begun to understand that many problems she has had in her life, and continues to have, were caused by Charles Smith having sexually abused her as a child," the lawsuit states. She hopes by coming forward, she'll be able to "prevent anyone else from being injured," said Mary Fleck, the woman's attorney in Seattle. The lawsuit didn't address whether law enforcement was ever involved. Smith said he had never been contacted by law enforcement officers in regard to such allegations. The woman, who asked not to be identified, told The Associated Press on Monday that she met Smith in the 1950s, when her family moved to the Seattle area and she began attending the church's Smith Bible Academy. The sexual abuse, she said, began several years later, when she was 12 or 13. "It started with little things, like being friendly, more like a coaching process or grooming process," she said in a telephone interview from Fleck's office. Smith would select the young girl for special tasks within the church or have her baby-sit at the academy, she said. "At that age you're very impressionable and you think that that puts you at a higher level than where you are," she said. The abuse began with a Sunday encounter, she said, before Smith's sermon to the congregation. "One day I ended up in his office," she said. "He asked me if I wanted him to be my boyfriend." Confused by the question, she said nothing. "It went to the point of penetration," she said, struggling to describe the experience and choking back tears. The alleged abuse continued for at least a year before she told anyone. She refused to say who she told. Eventually, she said, she left the congregation. The lawsuit states, "Despite knowledge of the abuse, the church defendants did not seek out Charles Smith's victims, when they learned or should have learned of the abuse and did not attempt to mitigate the damage inflicted on them." During the period in question, Smith would use "direct or indirect threats or promises, to engage in various sexual acts," the lawsuit said. "I was very confused because the approach is a lot different from what I see and hear today," she said. "It wasn't one of violence where I was snatched out of a crowd. You're in an environment of trust." Church of God in Christ, a predominantly black Protestant denomination, has about 6 million members worldwide. Monday's claim was not the first time the church has been embroiled in a harassment case. In April 2006, five Mississippi women settled a lawsuit in Holmes County Circuit Court accusing the superintendent of Saints Academy and College in Lexington, a religious school operated by the church, of harassment and sexual assault.
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