Two Women Share Shocking Accounts of Forced Labor and Sexual Abuse by Prominent Christian Leader Bill Gothard

By Laura Bult
New York Daily News
February 18, 2016

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/women-detail-sex-abuse-allegations-bill-gothard-article-1.2536758

Jennifer Spurlock, 38, spent three of her teenage years working for IBLP, during which time she was sexually abused by Bill Gothard and was the victim of attempted rape.

Two women who are accusing an influential Christian preacher with ties to the Duggar family of sexual assault spoke out for the first time Thursday about their hellish years of forced labor and abuse in the cult-like organization.

Joy Simmons and Jennifer Spurlock are two of the many men and women who have made the horrifying accusations against Bill Gothard, who ran Institute in Basic Life Principles, saying they were deprived of an education, forced to work and were groped by the Christian leader.

“To have your education ripped from you and to have your childhood ripped from you, it’s extremely difficult. It’s just evil,” Spurlock, who spent three years as a minor at one of Gothard’s training centers, told the Daily News.

Gothard retired in 2014 as president from the IBLP after running the organization for 40 years when the sexual assault allegations first came to light.

Bill Gothard, who never married or fathered children, has denied the sexual assault allegations against him.

The women are two of eight new plaintiffs who joined a lawsuit filed in DuPage County Court in Illinois against board members of the IBLP and Gothard, whose influence in the Evangelical Christian world was exemplified by his relationship with conservative politicians — Gothard was photographed with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at a campaign lunch during his 2008 presidential bid and former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue spoke at one of his conferences.

Josh Duggar, one of the siblings featured in the TLC reality show, was reported to have been sent to an IBLP training center after he admitted to sexually abusing four of his younger sisters and a family friend, according to an InTouch magazine investigation.

“Some people might see the Duggar family on TV and say that’s cute and sweet but they need to know there’s a dangerous element to it,” David Gibbs III, the lawyer who is representing the plaintiffs, told The News.

Gibbs’s Texas law firm first filed the lawsuit last October with five women and now the suit has grown to include 18 alleged victims, both men and women.

“It’s got very much a Bill Cosby-like feeling. They keep coming forward telling the same stories,” Gibbs said.

The women’s shocking allegations describe a disturbing culture within the organization in which Gothard would take troubled young men and women under his wing at the IBLP and then target them as victims of sexual abuse, rape and free labor for the bizarre organization.

IBLP board members are also listed as defendants in the lawsuit because of their role in covering the abuse, the more than 200-page complaint reads.

Josh Duggar, who appears in TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" was reported to have been sent to an IBLP training center, like Simmons and Spurlock, after he admitted to molesting four of his younger sisters and a family friend.

Both Simmons and Spurlock said they were abused by the predatory Christian leader when they were sent to stay with him after being sexual assaulted by other men affiliated with the Christian ministry.

Spurlock, 38, said she spent three years in the late 90s, between the ages of 15 and 18, working for and traveling with Gothard and was deprived of an education and exposure to the outside world.

Spurlock said she was singled out by Gothard when she was 15 after being was sent to an IBLP training center in Indianapolis by her family, who was living in Miami.

Arkansas state Rep. Jim Bob Duggar's family was the subject of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting," and had close ties with Bill Gothard.

“Mr. Gothard was just staring right at me, so much so that other girls would say ‘you’re so lucky, he couldn’t take his eyes off of you,’” Spurlock said.

“We were referred to as 'Gothard's girls.' People knew. It was actually a privilege," Spurlock said.

Gothard convinced Spurlock’s impoverished family to let the teen stay in Indiana for “counseling” for the “sins” of participating in sports and having a boyfriend — things that went against his puritanical belief that women should practice extreme modesty.

Simmons says that they had "no education" and "no friends" and were stuck with Gothard.

Spurlock was forced to work long hours in the training center’s kitchen and locked in her living quarters at night, she says.

After she was the victim of an attempted rape by a man receiving counseling at the facility, she says she was sent to Gothard who forced her to travel with him and repeatedly groped her.

“It started sitting on the sofa hip-to-hip, spreading his legs and touching my knees and smelling my hair,” Spurlock said of the abuse, which eventually led to Gothard “rubbing her thighs and in my vaginal area” over her clothes.

Spurlock’s story is echoed in many of the other women’s allegations, some of which were published on a whistleblowing site created for the victims called Recoveringgrace.org.

Another of the new plaintiffs, a man named Daniel Dorsett, said he witnessed Gothard sexually abuse more than 150 girls between 1994 and 1996 when he worked as a personal driver for him.

Spurlock says that she hopes the suit will stop these kinds of abuses from happening again.

“Gothard would select girls based on how they looked and tell them that it was God’s will for them to come work for him,” the complaint alleges.

“He would call their parents and tell them that he knew they were special.”

Simmons was sent to work at multiple training centers throughout the country starting when she was 17 years old and would often work 100-hour weeks with little to no pay.

Like Spurlock, Simmons was sent to Gothard at the organization's Hinsdale, Ill., headquarters after she was sexually assaulted by a man at a Wisconsin church affiliated with IBLP.

Spurlock owns a small business with her husband and lives in Miami.

Simmons, now 40, recalled that Gothard would also touch her while they prayed and asked her to reveal intimate details of her sexual assault during their counseling sessions.

“He would also tell me that it was my fault that I was assaulted and he would ask God to cleanse me,” Simmons told The News.

“We were isolated. No friends, no way out, no education. We were pretty stuck,” Simmons, who is now living with her husband and three children in Georgia, said of the traumatic experience. "Gothard said since I didn't cry out, I was just as guilty as the guy who assaulted me."

Spurlock was able to escape Gothard’s grip in 1995, while Simmons left the IBLP in 2005.

Gothard has denied all of the allegations against him through his attorney, who called the women’s stories “defamatory.”

“We are confident that the pleading that’s been filed will be subject to a motion to dismiss,” Glenn Gaffney, who is representing Gothard, said.

The lawsuit seeks to get compensation of $50,000 for each plaintiff from IBLP and Gothard for unpaid labor, as well as to pay for counseling for the victims.

“No money is ever going to be enough,” said Spurlock, who is now married with an adopted son and owns a business in Miami. “It’s really difficult, it’s taken me years to build who I am back up after what they did to me.”

Preliminary hearings for the lawsuit are expected in April.

Contact: lbult@nydailynews.com