(SC)
AOL [New York, NY]
December 17, 2024
By Andrew Dys, Rock Hill Herald
The lawyer for three children who were sexually abused by a MorningStar Fellowship volunteer told a judge Monday the church should not be dropped from lawsuits over claims of religious freedom
The hearing Monday was the first public court action in the case after The Herald exclusively reported last month MorningStar asked the cases be dismissed over ‘ecclesiastical doctrine’ — a claim that the separation of church and state bars the case against it.
MorningStar, located in York County near the North Carolina state line, is a large non-denominational congregation with hundreds of members. It runs MorningStar University and a K-12 school, according to its website.
Erickson Lee, 26, a former police officer in Cornelius, N.C., is serving a nine-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in September to sex crimes against children from a church youth group he ran for three years before he was arrested in 2023.
Lawyers for the church told visiting Judge Martha Rivers during a hearing at the Moss Justice Center in York some of the lawsuit allegations made earlier this year by the three kids and their families cross the line into the separation of church and state guaranteed by the Constitution’s First Amendment.
Rivers made no decision on whether to drop MorningStar or its leaders from the lawsuit. Rivers did not say when she would rule on dismissing the church.
The lawsuits
The three victims filed lawsuits in August and September against Erickson Lee and the church and its leaders, alleging negligence, conspiracy, and a cover-up. Morningstar CEO and founder Rick Joyner and the church deny the church or leaders were negligent or covered up sex abuse.
The lawsuits seek compensatory and punitive damages for alleged church and leaders’ negligence, as well as emotional anguish and distress from alleged “outrageous” conduct of the defendants.
Lee is also a defendant in the same civil lawsuits. He was not in court Monday. The criminal case where Lee pleaded guilty and the civil lawsuits are separate.
None of the children, their families, or the defendants in the case attended court Monday.
Childrens’ lawyer: Church failed kids
Lee sexually abused the boys who were as young as 12 after the church did a background check on him, Rock Hill lawyer Randy Hood said in court.
“In this case we have a grown man in a situation where he is over a bunch of kids,” Hood argued Monday in court. “He is engaging in sexual acts with children…I have no idea how that falls under ecclesiastical privilege.”
While volunteering with a church youth group, Lee gave the boys vapes cigarettes and alcohol, Hood said. Lee showed the boys porn, lay naked in sleeping bags with them and took showers with them, Hood said.
Hood said past case law shows that the church should be kept as a defendant because Lee was a church volunteer when he abused the children.
“This was a sexual abuse mismanagement at the hands of the leadership in this church,” Hood said. “Three boys are forever changed.”
Church: Religious freedom and volunteers are not employees
Matthew G. Gerrald, one of MorningStar’s lawyers from Columbia, told Judge Rivers some of the allegations in the lawsuit “could potentially cross the line into ecclesiastical doctrine.”
Gerrald did not go into specifics about what religious freedoms should not be covered by the allegations of sex abuse.
Gerrald also said the law is separate for cases involving employees and volunteers. The lawsuits suggest negligent hiring, supervision or training, Gerrald said.
Erickson Lee was not an employee of the church, Gerrald told Judge Rivers.