SNAP Leader Terms $12.5 Million Abuse Award against Florida Baptist Convention Historic

By Bob Allen
Associated Baptist Press
January 23, 2014

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/

The head of a group that fought for changes in the Catholic Church in light of the pedophile priest scandal termed a $12.5 million judgment against the Florida Baptist Convention historic.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said despite “widespread” child sex crimes by Baptist ministers, relatively few civil lawsuits have been filed against Baptist churches.

That is beginning to change, he said, thanks in part to “brave individuals” like the unidentified man in his 20s who claimed a church planter recruited and resourced by the state convention sexually abused him when he was 13.

In 2012 a Florida jury found the state convention liable for not properly screening church planter Douglas Myers, now in prison in Maryland after serving seven years in Florida. While a criminal background check on Myers showed no prior convictions, members of his previous two churches said he left under suspicion and if asked they would have recommended against hiring him.

On Jan. 18 a second jury ordered the Florida Baptist Convention to pay the victim $12.5 million in damages, one of the largest judgments in Florida and thought to be the first ever against a statewide affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention.