Woman Sues Apostolic Faith Church for $5.25 Million, Alleging 1980s Sexual Abuse

By Stuart Tomlinson
The Oregonian
September 6, 2012

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/09/woman_sues_apostolic_faith_chu.html

Woman sues Apostolic Faith Church for $5.25 million, alleging 1980s sexual abuse

The rules at the Apostolic Faith Church in Portland in the 1980s were very strict: Women and girls wore skirts and long-sleeved shirts. No makeup, no jewelry, no TV.

What wasn't strict, a $5.25 million lawsuit alleges, was the church's policy about hiring men to work in the church's daycare center or as assistant pastors.

On Wednesday, a 30-year-old Portland woman known only under the pseudonym "HK" in the lawsuit, said she was sexually abused by daycare worker James Sheals and assistant pastor Walt Smith. The abuse started when she was 4 and ended when she was 8, spanning 1986 through 1990, she said at a news conference.

Attorney Kelly Clark said church officials knew they had a widespread problem with pedophiles operating inside the church, but did nothing about it.

"Based on what witnesses have told us, we think that there was as many as half a dozen child abusers in the church during the time the abuse took place," Clark said. "They chose to protect their own reputation and their own people, rather than protect the children."

Apostolic Faith Church officials did not return phone calls for comment.

"HK," a mother of three with a fourth on the way, said she was "terrified" when the abuse took place and said one of the men "used threats against me and my mother."

She told her kindergarten teacher that she was being abused, she said, and the teacher talked to her parents. At the time, both her parents worked for the church.

They went to church officials, who told them not to say anything, she said. "And they didn't," she said, "because they controlled them. That was a turning point. I started acting out, trying to get attention -- it was the start of a very long spiral down."

After years of intense counseling, the support of friends and her family (she has since reconciled with her parents who no longer belong to the church), she said she decided to come forward.

"Getting the word out helps these organizations to be accountable for their actions," she said. She also wants to send the message to kids: "It's OK to tell. You don't have to be scared. There are safe people for you to go to."

None of the two men named in the lawsuit were ever criminally charged, Clark said. Smith has died; Sheals remains in Portland.

In 1994, Sheals and the church were sued by another girl and her parents for sexual abuse. According the court documents, the church paid the family $76,500 to settle the lawsuit.