More Possible Cases of Sexual Abuse Investigated at Victory Christian Center

By Jarrel Wade
Tulsa World
September 19, 2012

http://www.tulsaworld.com/specialprojects/news/crimewatch/article.aspx?subjectid=450&articleid=20120919_11_A1_CUTLIN388440



The investigation into alleged sexual abuse at Victory Christian Center has revealed more possible victims who are not cooperating with the ongoing investigation, police said Tuesday.

Two former employees are charged with child-sex offenses after police received reports involving underage girls nearly two weeks after the girls reported the allegations to Victory Christian officials, court records show.

Chris Denman, 20, is jailed on charges of raping a 13-year-old girl at the church, court records show. Israel Shalom Castillo, 23, is charged with making a lewd or indecent proposal to a child and using a computer to facilitate a sex crime.

Castillo had not been arrested by Tuesday night, jail records indicate.

Sgt. Brandon Wykoff, a detective in the Tulsa Police Department's Child Crisis Unit, said additional charges could be possible if more victims come forward. "We're trying to get these girls in for interviews," Wykoff said. "We're not exactly having cooperation with some of the parents."

Five staff members - including two relatives of the church's senior pastor - posted bond and were released from jail Monday night after being arrested on misdemeanor charges of failing to report child abuse. They are also suspended from their employment at the church, Victory Christian officials have said.

Police said Tuesday that Sharon Daugherty, the senior pastor, knew about the allegations during the two-week lapse in reporting them to police. Wykoff said Daugherty didn't take any action because she believed her subordinates were appropriately reporting the problem to police.

Victory Christian Center released a brief statement Tuesday evening in response to Tulsa police statements, saying only that "the church has not been made aware of any additional alleged victims of Denman and Castillo."

In a statement released earlier Tuesday, Victory Christian said both Denman and Castillo passed a screening process that included personal references and a nationwide background check before being hired and that no history of any criminal activity was found.

Denman and Castillo were fired on Aug. 24, and police reports involving both were completed on Aug. 30, Victory Christian Center said in the statement.

Along with working with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services to evaluate the church's reporting process, Victory Christian Center will perform a full review of its policies to ensure the safety of its children and youth, the statement says.

Daugherty's son John Samuel Daugherty, 28, and his wife, Charica Dene Daugherty, 27, left the Tulsa Jail late Monday after spending about two hours in custody.

Also released late Monday were Paul Willemstein, 32, Anna George, 24, and Harold Frank Sullivan, 73. All five are charged with misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse, jail records show.

Wykoff said child victims sometimes become uncomfortable speaking about a crime if time passes before police get involved.

"When they report it to an adult and nothing happens, they become more reluctant to talk about it out of embarrassment or thinking for whatever reason they might get in trouble," Wykoff said. "This age group aren't comfortable with talking about this kind of thing."

Sometimes problems with investigating abuse at churches occur because of a false sense of hurting the church, Wykoff said.

Wykoff faced that issue at Grace Fellowship Church in Tulsa in 2002 when criminal counts alleging the sexual abuse of nine boys starting in 1997 were filed against an employee.

Aaron R. Thompson, now 35, was a teacher at Grace Fellowship Christian School. Thompson pleaded guilty to 16 counts of lewd molestation and two counts of sexually abusing a child.

He was sentenced to spend at least 21 years of a 25-year sentence behind bars and remains in the Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington.

"We had kids that we were pretty confident that they were victims, but the parents' response was they were going to - they flat out told us - they were going to pray about it and handle it within their family," Wykoff said of the Grace Fellowship case. "So we never had the opportunity to talk to those victims.

"We are somewhat - with one victim in particular - we are dealing with that right now.

"How do you convince parents that it's not OK to just pray about it?"