What Philip Gunn Did in Child Sex Case, WJTV, November 28, 2011

What Philip Gunn Did in Child Sex Case

WJTV
November 28, 2011

http://m.wjtv.com/wjtv/db_18397/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=unFLdCQK

The man who wants to be Mississippi’s next House Speaker faces some tough questions about his role in a child sex abuse case.

Philip Gunn, who's a Republican, is an elder and attorney representing a metro area church where a former music minister in now charged with child sex abuse.

Gunn says he supports a law requiring the reporting allegations of child abuse. He claims Democrats have blocked the legislation for years.

But it's ironic that Gunn is pushing for such a bill to be passed.

According to Hinds County prosecutors, Gunn would not allow spiritual leaders at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton to discuss with the District Attorney's office what former music minister John Langworthy told them about his alleged child sex abuse.

We asked Gunn: Should you of done that? "What I'm telling you is that the elders are bound by privilege under the law there's a legal privilege that attaches. Are there no exceptions to that. No there are no exceptions to that, " Gunn said in an interview Tuesday.

Gunn cited Mississippi rules of evidence #505 about priest-penitent privilege.

Don't you have a higher calling to God than to just hide behind the blanket letter of the law? "The letter of the law prevents us from divulging what Mr. Langworthy may have told us. That's the law. I didn't make the law that's just the way it is."

Gunn tells us church elders didn't do anything wrong they didn't withhold any information from prosecutors because that information was already in the public domain. The victims had already come forward and told their stories.

Still, Hinds County prosecutors want to know what Langworthy allegedly told the ministers at the church and say they are prepared to get a subpoena if that’s what it takes to get them to talk.