CANTON (GA)
Patch
By Rodney Thrash
First Baptist Canton allowed a fired employee with a history of sexual misconduct against children to return to the church as a volunteer, a misstep that led to the sexual battery of a teenage boy, the parents of the victim allege in a civil suit.
The boy’s parents are suing the church, senior pastor George Anderson and former church employee Shawn Finch, alleging that they not only failed to properly supervise the volunteer and the children in their care, but tried to “downplay” the abuse in a meeting at the church.
A Cherokee County grand jury in April 2011 indicted the volunteer, 29-year-old Matthew Brent Sheffield of Canton, in the June 2010 sexual battery of the boy, who was 14 years old at the time. Sheffield faces two felony counts of child molestation.
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