NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune
Friday, March 02, 2012, 9:00 PM
By John Simerman, The Times-Picayune
An Orleans Parish judge quashed a five-count indictment Friday against the 59-year-old spiritual head of a local Pentecostal church, ruling that the three purported victims waited too long to lodge their allegations against Bishop Charles E. Brown. Criminal District Judge Karen Herman ruled that the statute of limitations, as it was written when the alleged sexual attacks took place, had long ago run out.
Brown, the jurisdictional bishop for Greater New Orleans in the Church of God in Christ, based in Memphis, Tenn., also was pastor of Full Gospel Church of God in Christ in New Orleans, though he spent much of his time leading a congregation in Houston. The Church of God in Christ suspended him after learning of the first allegation, which came to light in September.
Police booked Brown with aggravated rape on June 28, after an unidentified 39-year-old woman called the NOPD’s child abuse unit in March to report that he had molested her between the ages of 14 and 16.
Afterward, two other women came forward with accusations against him. One of them, now 47, claims Brown committed indecent behavior and sexual battery sometime between her 13th and 17th birthdays, according to the indictment. Identified only as “C.B.,” she reached 17 in 1981.
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