DALLAS (TX)
New York Times [New York NY]
April 8, 2025
By David W. Chen / Photographs by Desiree Rios
A man abused as a child at a Missouri Christian camp agreed to remain silent, and took his own life. His sister is pushing several states to ban such nondisclosure agreements.
Like the children of many affluent evangelical families in Dallas, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips and her younger brother Trey Carlock spent their summers at a Christian sports camp in Missouri. After Mr. Carlock suffered years of sexual abuse by one of the camp’s directors, he reached a financial settlement to compensate him for his trauma, but at a suffocating price: He could never tell anyone about what had happened.
Mr. Carlock, a neuroscience researcher, cycled in and out of more than a dozen hospitals and treatment centers, and tried electroconvulsive therapy. He became increasingly detached from family and friends, and took his own life in August 2019. He was 28.
“Trey told a therapist, ‘They will always control me, and I’ll never be free,’” said Ms. Phillips, who added that the family still had no idea what his nondisclosure agreement had dictated, or what truly had happened to him. “He called his settlement dollars blood money, because taking that money in exchange for an NDA felt like a bribe.”
She added, “He was silenced to his grave.”
Thanks to the efforts of Ms. Phillips and other victims’ relatives, Texas and Missouri are among several states now aiming to ban such nondisclosure agreements in cases of childhood sexual assault.
To critics, the agreements impose a lifetime gag order and deny survivors the ability to heal by sharing their trauma. They also shield perpetrators and the institutions that effectively protect them, allowing abusers to prey upon more unknowing children.
Companies have long used nondisclosure agreements in different contexts to protect trade secrets, confidential data and intellectual property. In civil cases, confidential settlements can resolve matters that might have taken years to go to trial, by allowing those accused of wrongdoing to minimize any publicity.
In recent years, many companies and institutions have used nondisclosure agreements when settling workplace claims of sexual harassment and assault, especially those involving high-profile figures. Yet few such agreements are as potentially fraught as those tied to childhood sexual abuse, involving victims struggling with self-doubt who may have needed decades to come forward.
Statute of limitations provisions act as another barrier to victims of childhood sexual abuse, with the legal window for filing claims often closing by the time victims reach adulthood and truly understand the damage done.
The extent of the potential liability became clear last week, with a proposed $4 billion legal settlement in California for plaintiffs who said they were sexually abused as children in Los Angeles County’s juvenile detention and foster care systems, in cases dating to the late 1950s.
This year, lawmakers in Texas and Missouri, led by a number of conservative Republicans, have introduced more than 20 bills related to childhood sexual abuse. Some seek to void existing NDAs and outlaw future ones, allowing victims past and present to disclose what happened and who was responsible. Others aim to loosen the statute of limitations to give survivors more time to file civil lawsuits.
“To me it’s clear — you either stand with victims, or you stand with the people who harmed them,” said State Representative Jeff Leach of Texas, the chair of the state’s House Judiciary Committee, who is sponsoring one of the bills.
To date, only Tennessee has enacted similar NDA legislation. But four bills have cleared committees in Texas and Missouri, with the Texas House set to vote on one on Tuesday. Lawmakers in Oklahoma and Oregon have also expressed interest.
The push echoes one on the federal level to eliminate workplace NDAs taken on by Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, two former Fox News contributors who sued Roger Ailes, then the network’s chairman and chief executive, over sexual harassment and retaliation.
New laws have also been passed in New Jersey, Washington and California.
For Ms. Phillips and her brother, who grew up in an upscale Dallas suburb, religion was a cornerstone of family life. The children spent their summers at Kanakuk Kamps in Branson, Mo., which is celebrating its centennial this summer.
“Trey told a therapist, they will always control me, and I’ll never be free,” said Ms. Phillips.
All the while, Pete Newman, a charismatic camp director, was grooming and abusing Mr. Carlock from age 7 to 16, according to court documents. Mr. Newman pleaded guilty in 2010 to sexual abuse, and others were also accused. The prosecutor who handled the case has told reporters there were probably hundreds of victims.
A few years later, Mr. Carlock was among dozens of camp attendees who either sued or reached settlements with Mr. Newman and Kanakuk using John Doe pseudonyms, on the condition that they stay mum. Several former Kanakuk campers have died by suicide, according to Ms. Phillips and other advocates for victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Ms. Phillips, a 37-year-old Dallas entrepreneur who runs a family foundation, cautioned that people may not always know what drove their loved ones to suicide. But she said that the enforced silence required by the NDA her brother signed had added to his despair.
Kanakuk and its lawyers did not respond to requests to discuss the litigation and legislation. But camp officials acknowledged in a statement that “we were wrong in our understanding of the language of many of these agreements, and we failed to recognize the restrictions — both real and perceived — that many victims are under,” and said that they were “deeply regretful and apologetic.”
Still, Kanakuk said that while they “support the right of victims to share their stories in pursuit of healing,” insurers may insist that the specific terms of any settlement “must remain confidential.”
One supporter of the proposed new legislation in Texas is State Senator Angela Paxton, a Republican from McKinney, north of Dallas. In an interview at her State Capitol office, she said she had been heartbroken upon learning from Ms. Phillips that a former student from Senator Paxton’s days as a high school math teacher had been abused at Kanakuk. He had signed a nondisclosure agreement under duress, he had told Ms. Phillips, and later had become so despondent that he thought about killing himself.
“There are a handful of issues that people really come together over, and I believe this is one that has,” said Senator Paxton, who is the wife of Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general.
Then, she reached for a Bible on her desk, and found a passage in Deuteronomy 30:19 urging people to “choose life, so that it may go well for you and your children,” as she put it.
“This is why God brought me here — this legislation, this package around protecting children from future sexual abuse,” she said, tearing up.
Lawmakers in Missouri have also been supportive and, like their counterparts in Texas, are calling the NDA bill “Trey’s Law” in memory of Mr. Carlock.
At a hearing in the Missouri Senate, Senator Brad Hudson, a Republican who represents Branson and is also a pastor, said if the bills were not adopted, “we are siding with abusers and perpetrators in making Missouri a sanctuary state for pedophiles.”
No one at the hearing opposed the NDA bill, though three business lobbyists criticized a statute of limitations bill, wary of the costs.
“If you had an unlimited liability for an unknown amount of years for an unknown amount of money, how would you as a company be able to set that insurance rate?” said Richard AuBuchon, executive director of the Missouri Civil Justice Reform Coalition.
Three bills in Missouri, and three in Texas, call for constitutional amendments that, if approved by voters, would allow for retroactive laws for civil actions related to sexual abuse of children. That means victims of past abuse, and not just future ones, could file a claim.
State Representative Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat and a former prosecutor, said she had gotten more traction than during the previous two sessions when she had introduced similar legislation. Indeed, she said, someone she has known for decades recently grabbed her by the arm while they were in the courthouse.
“He told me that he was a victim, and that he had not yet dealt with the issue,” she said.
Representative Leach’s wife is a survivor as well: She was sexually abused by a family member, and after her emotional testimony in 2019, in front of Representative Leach’s committee, the legislature extended, to age 48, the deadline by which future survivors of sexual abuse could sue.
Representative Leach, who represents a district north of Dallas, is now sponsoring the Trey’s Law bill.
“When Texas leads in areas like this — when we take some risk and we’re stepping out into uncharted legislative territory — other states will follow,” he said. “That’s my hope.”
He pointed to a sign in his office, which read, “Do Right and Fear No Man.”
He explained: “When you know this is the right thing to do, then you know what? We just have to do it.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
David W. Chen reports on state legislatures, state level policymaking and the political forces behind them.