GEORGIA
Ledger-Enquirer
[with video]
BY CHUCK WILLIAMS
chwilliams@ledger-enquirer.com
A Columbus woman who has filed a civil suit against a local pastor after years of inappropriate sexual abuse said that he twice paid for abortions after getting her pregnant, once when she was 16.
Lequita Jackson, who started attending pastor Lewis Clemons’ church when she was 14 and did not leave it until last month, alleges that Clemons led her into “inappropriate sexual contact.” Jackson, now 30, said Clemons used his position of leadership in the church to make her “do what he wanted and to justify his actions.”
Jackson’s revelations came on the same day that a second Clemons’ church member claimed the pastor had made inappropriate physical contact with her. Tuesday, a second former member of Clemons’ congregation stepped forward with her story of inappropriate contact by the pastor. Lakisha Smith, a member of Clemons’ church from 2011-2016, told of three occasions where the pastor acted inappropriately.
Jackson filed a suit in Muscogee County Superior Court last month, seeking financial damages and to have Clemons banned from serving as a pastor. She has hired Atlanta attorney Jeb Butler of the firm Butler Tobin.
The civil suit was filed against Clemons, Church of God in Christ Inc., Wynnton Road Ministries Church of God in Christ, Inc., and five other parties that were not named. Clemons is currently senior pastor at Kingdom Awareness Ministries, where his title is apostle.
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