TENNESSEE
Nashville Scene
POSTED BY CARI WADE GERVIN ON WED, MAY 4, 2016
Madison’s Cornerstone Church, helmed by the controversial pastor Maury Davis, has been sued by a former member, who alleges the church’s negligence led to a volunteer on the youth staff molesting him. The lawsuit, filed two weeks ago in Davidson County, asks for a jury trial and that damages over $10 million be awarded.
The abuse itself is not in question. The plaintiff is now 19, but in 2008, when he was 11, he was molested by Brian Lance Mitchell. Police charged Mitchell with aggravated sexual battery and rape in 2012, and he is currently incarcerated for the crime. At the time of his arrest, Cornerstone stated Mitchell had been impersonating a youth volunteer — a claim the lawsuit flatly denies.
According to the filing, Mitchell had been vetted by Cornerstone for the Youth Staff in 2007, at which point he disclosed that he had been convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in 2003, when he provided alcohol to three minor children. Yet Cornerstone still let him volunteer with children, along with operating a sound board. After the victim’s mother asked pastor Dana Lawson for advice in finding a male role model for her son — whose father had committed suicide when he was an infant — Lawson recommended Mitchell. Throughout 2007, the suit claims, Mitchell regularly spent unsupervised time with the victim, both on and off the church’s campus, and in the summer of 2008 was appointed his “official mentor.”
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