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	Family of Victim and New Hanover Pastor Settle Sex Molestation Civil Suit By Michael Rellahan The Berks-Mont November 17, 2011 http://www.berksmontnews.com/articles/2011/11/16/boyertown_area_times/news/doc4ec4164da1393799413033.txt Attorneys for a teenage girl who was sexually molested by the son of a pastor at her church in Gilbertsviile, Montgomery County, have settled a lawsuit in which they charged the pastor, the church, and its governing body with negligence for allowing the abuse to occur. Terms of the settlement, which came just before the start of a scheduled jury trial in Chester County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday, were not disclosed. Attorney Mark Tunnell, who represented the victims and her mother as plaintiffs in the case, said that it remains confidential. “We can only say that the matter was satisfactorily resolved,” Tunnell said Wednesday. The girl and her mother, acting as her guardian, filed the civil complaint in May 2010 against David Benson Lewis, the son of Rev. David M. Lewis, and his church, the New Hanover United Methodist Church. Also named in the complaint were Rev. Brant S. Lingle, another pastor at the New Hanover Church, and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church in Norristown. In November 2009, David Benson Lewis was sentenced to 30 days to 23 months in Montgomery County Prison after he pleaded guilty to charges of endangering the welfare of children and indecent assault. He had earlier admitted that on as many as six occasions in 2008,he had improperly touched the girl when he took her home after church social functions. He was 23 at the time; she was 15. According to the suit, David Benson Lewis, “told (the girl) that she was ‘the best person in the world,’ constantly assured her that he loved her, wrote her notes and love letters describing how incredible he thought she was and told her she was beautiful,” the suit states. The girl thought that he was going to marry her “and that they would spend the rest of their lives together.” After he fondled her, however, the girl, whose name is not used in the suit, became emotionally distressed, humiliated and embarrassed, the suit says. At David Benson Lewis’ sentencing in November 2009, the girl, now 18, told the judge that she had become “angry at my God. I’m feeling I have to start all over again in my faith. My church has been taken away from me and so has my faith.” In charging the church and Methodist conference with negligence, the suit pointed out that David Benson Lewis had engaged in inappropriate conduct with other young girls in the church’s youth groups, of which he was a volunteer leader. “He would spend an inordinate amount of time and attention with these minors and continually texted them a type of grooming behavior; in this manner, he would attempt to lull the girls’ families into being relaxed about and supportive of the lengthy periods of time he spent with them,” the suit states. The girl’s mother, according to the complaint, thought “how lucky we are to know our daughter is safe with a church group,” the lawsuit states. The suit says that when other parents complained about David Benson Lewis’ behavior to his father, David M. Lewis, and Lingle, their complaints were ignored. The suit also accused the two men of failing to follow the state’s law requiring clergy to report accounts of sexual abuse to law enforcement authorities. It also contended that officials at New Hanover did not follow rules set forth by the Methodist conference in preventing child abuse, includign having two adults supervising all activities involving children and youth groups, including taking them home after church related activities. Attorneys for the church and the pastors, although acknowledging that David Benson Lewis had acted inappropriately with the girl, denied that they were liable for her claims of damages. They said no one knew that the younger Lewis might be having sexual contact with a juvenile member of the church. Fred Buck, a Philadelphia attorney with the law firm of Rawle & Henderson, who represented several of the defendants, could not be reached for comment on the settlement. The case was filed in Chester County for legal and tactical reasons, not because any of the assaults took place in the county. In addition, Tunnell came to the attention of the girl’s mother when he won a civil judgment against Keith Fulmer, a former member of the Owen J. Roberts School Board, for $1.5 million on behalf of a young girl that Fulmer sexually abused. Last week, Tunnell, of the West Chester firm of Gawthrop Greenwood, was elected judge to serve on the county’s Common Pleas Court. Contact: mrellahan@journalregister.com
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