FORT WORTH (TX)
WFAA-TV, ABC-8 [Dallas TX]
March 14, 2025
By Kevin Reece
“People are fed up with pastors who pray in tongues and prey upon children,” said attorney Brian Butcher.
A multimillion-dollar civil judgment has been levied against a Fort Worth pastor in a sexual assault civil case that had already cost the pastor’s church its entire Rosemont neighborhood campus.
Jose Francisco Bernal was arrested and indicted in 2017 for the alleged sexual assault of two girls in the youth department of his congregation at Tabernaculo de Vida-Iglesia Pentecostal Church. The women, now adults, claimed they had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by Bernal since they were as young as 7 years old.
His criminal case went to trial in 2022 and ended with a hung jury, and a mistrial. Prosecutors chose not to retry the case. But in 2023, Adriana Jaimes and her sister brought a civil suit against the church.
“He would always just be right in front of me,” Adriana said of her required seating location with other female youth on the front row of the church. Women in the church were required to wear dresses. The pastor would often “speak in tongues.”
“I think he’s very, very good at manipulating people,” she said.
Adriana said Bernal befriended their mother, a single parent, and sexually assaulted them at their own home, in the church office, and even in the church sanctuary audio booth. Adriana Jaimes said the abuse lasted for at least seven years.
“He was manipulating us into thinking that our life would be flipped upside down,” she said about the threats made against them if they spoke up. “And he kind of had a point. It was flipped upside down. When we did tell the truth.”
“They were told that they were the liars,” said Adriana’s attorney Brian Butcher with the Noteboom Law Firm. “There were entire sermons delivered about how these girls are lying, that it’s all made up.”
In a civil court victory in 2023, Adriana and her sister were awarded the entire church property. The lot at the corner of West Dickson Street and Travis Avenue, the sanctuary and offices, and a separate home where Sunday School classes were held, now belong to the two girls. They will benefit from any eventual sale of the property. An insurance policy held by the church also paid the girls $100,000.
At the time, Brian Butcher and Adriana Jaimes celebrated by placing a handwritten sign on the church door. It said, “closed due to pastor being a pedophile — under new management.”
“People are fed up with pastors who pray in tongues and prey upon children,” Butcher said.
This week, in a separate civil filing against Jose Francisco Bernal, a jury, after only a few hours of deliberation, awarded the girls a total of $124 million. How much of that they can actually collect from Bernal is unclear.
As part of his closing argument, Brian Butcher read scripture in court, Matthew 18:6.
“It’s better to have a millstone tied around a person’s neck and dropped to the bottom of the sea,” Butcher said of the verse that references “If anyone causes these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble.”
“I asked for a large verdict in this case simply because a millstone wasn’t an option,” said Butcher.
In a brief statement, the pastor’s attorney, Brandon Weaver, told WFAA, “Mr. Bernal has always denied the allegations,” and added, “We are certainly disappointed with the jury’s verdict, and we are reviewing our legal options moving forward at this point.”
Attorneys representing the two women said they believed there might be more victims and asked that they come forward for other potential cases against Bernal.
As for Adriana, we asked if she had any words for the pastor now.
“No,” she said. “I just think that life is giving him what he deserves. I think he got away with it for far too long. And I just think it’s time that he gets what he deserves.”