UNITED STATES
Daily Mail (UK)
By KELLY MCLAUGHLIN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
A bishop at one of the largest African-American Christian churches in the United States has been accused of grooming and sexually assaulting a female member of the denomination for more than 20 years.
Kimberly Pollard, who is now 37, filed a $12.2-million lawsuit against the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and Bishop James L’Keith Jones, accusing the church of allowing her to be sexually assaulted by the high-ranking bishop for 20 years, according to court papers obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.
Pollard claims that Jones not only groomed her into what became a 20-year sexual relationship and extra-marital affair, but also tried to groom her six-year-old daughter, telling her she looked ‘sexy’ and that he would wait until she was 18 to date her.
The mother-of-one from Lubbock, Texas, says that the relationship between her and Jones turned sexual in or around 1995, when she was still a minor.
She says that during a Holy Convocation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jones used his relationship as a then-pastor to sexually assault her and engage in an illicit sexual relationship.
And over the next 20 years, as Jones was promoted to higher rankings and given more responsibility in the church, he continued the sexual relationship through coercion, threats and his position as a spiritual adviser, Pollard claims.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.