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	Defrocked Pastor Wins Appeal By Tim Townsend Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO] September 22, 2006 http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/ 43E4AEFA8A07912F862571F200134F76?OpenDocument A defrocked pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church has won an appeal of a church ruling that accused him of child sexual abuse. But it could be nearly two years before a final decision is made on whether he will be allowed to lead an AME church again. Church investigative committees in St. Louis and Los Angeles sustained separate allegations of "child sexual abuse" against the Rev. Sylvester Laudermill Jr. in May. Laudermill, 48, was pastor at St. Peter AME Church, at Margaretta and Shreve avenues in St. Louis from 1994 to 2004 and served with numerous clergy-activist groups, including Metropolitan Congregations United for St. Louis. In 2004, Laudermill returned to his native Los Angeles where he was pastor of Ward AME, the denomination's second largest church in Los Angeles, until he stepped down in May. Bishop John R. Bryant, whose authority extends from Missouri to California, defrocked Laudermill after two investigative committees made up of local church leaders sustained the allegations. Criminal charges have not been filed against Laudermill. Ed Postawko, assistant St. Louis circuit attorney, said an investigation of Laudermill "is still ongoing." An attorney for Laudermill confirmed the council's ruling but did not comment further. It was unclear Friday why the judicial council reversed the committees' decisions. Neither the president nor vice president of the church's nine-member council could be reached for comment. Two other members of the council refused to comment. The Rev. Granville W. Reed III, the council's assistant secretary, would confirm only that the council had made a decision but would not release the ruling. The church's general secretary, the Rev. Clement W. Fugh, also would not comment. According to Bryant's attorney, J. Stanley Sanders, the council "reversed with prejudice" the St. Louis investigative committee's ruling that Laudermill had a seven-year sexual relationship with a male in St. Louis that started when the boy was 14. The term "with prejudice" indicates the council's decision is final, and it will not be sent back to the investigative committee, said Sanders. The judicial council also reversed a ruling sustained by an investigative committee in Los Angeles, where Laudermill was alleged to have sexually abused a 16-year-old boy in 2005. The council has remanded that ruling back to the committee for retrial, according to Sanders. That investigation will start over again from the beginning. During the original investigations, Laudermill appeared before the investigative committee in Los Angeles but not in St. Louis. Sanders said Bryant would appeal both reversals to the church's General Convention, the highest legal authority in the church. That body meets every four years, and is scheduled to meet next in June 2008. Until then, Laudermill's status will be the same as when the committees in St. Louis and Los Angeles were originally investigating the allegations, said Sanders, meaning the pastor will not immediately be reinstated. In an interview Friday, the mother of the alleged teenage victim in Los Angeles called the judicial council's reversals "a joke," and said she was distraught that her son would have to go through the long investigative process, including testifying in front of the committee, another time. "We'll do it again for the sake of other kids, but it doesn't make any sense," she said. Ken Chackes, an attorney for the alleged victim in St. Louis, said his client would be extremely upset when he heard news of the reversal. "It seems like the higher church officials are working hard to protect their own in spite of strong evidence that (Laudermill) has done awful things and children need to be protected," he said.
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