Mother Tells Court of Shock over Prayer Palace Pastor’s Alleged Assault
By Jacques Gallant
One of Paul Melnichuk’s two alleged sexual assault victims testified Friday that it felt like a “strong animal” had grabbed her the day she and the popular pastor were walking alone in a church hallway. “You don’t even have a second to react or think,” the woman, whose name is covered by a publication ban, testified in a Finch Ave. courtroom, right next door to Melnichuk’s Prayer Palace, the massive evangelical church he founded decades ago and also the scene of the alleged crime. The flamboyant 83-year-old pastor pleaded not guilty on the first day of his trial Thursday to sexually assaulting the woman and her daughter, who were once members of the congregation. The woman said she was walking to Melnichuk’s left one day in 2014 when she testified he suddenly grabbed her shoulders, pressed his genitals up against her buttocks and made a shaking motion with his hips. She said she then jumped and turned around and he did the same. The woman demonstrated all of this in court on her Spanish interpreter. The woman had been working in an office at the church for several months at that point. She testified Melnichuk eventually followed her back into her office, where she sat behind the desk. “I was very confused, I was in shock, I was trembling,” she testified in her examination-in-chief. She said she told him: “You need me in this place. Don’t you ever dare do what you just did to me.” He then bent down and hugged her, she said, and told her: “Only hugs. Only hugs.” By that point she had already felt uncomfortable being alone with Melnichuk, the woman testified under questioning from Crown attorney Stuart Rothman. She had been volunteering at the church, and her children were also active in the congregation. The woman said she felt that Melnichuk was very kind and generous, like a father to her. He had given money to help the family, and she had invited Melnichuk and his wife over for dinner once. “Anything that they asked of us, we were a family that was there for them,” she said. “I trusted him as a spiritual figure, as a father for me, and grandfather for my children.” But before the alleged hallway incident, there were two hugs that the woman recalled made her uncomfortable. She said Melnichuk hugged her and then gave her a slight slap on the buttocks. “It was always very quick,” she said. She also spoke of being quickly grabbed on several occasions, where she said Melnichuk touched her breast. Becoming emotional on the stand, she testified about the day in the fall of 2014 she learned from her son that her daughter was claiming that Melnichuk had sexually abused her. “That’s when I said to everyone that he had done the same thing to me,” she testified. At first her daughter did not want to go to the police, but after several months of discussion amongst family members, the woman said she and her daughter decided to file a report. “I am a woman who seeks out God and perhaps this might not be relevant to any of you, but I know it was the right thing to do in front of God, because a man who is prophesying about justice and truth cannot continue doing what he was doing,” she said. “I don’t know if he was doing this with other people, but I could not allow him to do this to another person. We gave my daughter time…It’s not easy to be here, especially to accuse someone who meant a lot to me, but it was the right thing to do.” Melnichuk’s lawyer, Nathan Gorham, objected, saying the woman was “pontificating,” but Justice Gerald Lapkin allowed it, saying the woman was explaining the delay in reporting to the police. The woman’s daughter, 20, testified Thursday that she had been inappropriately kissed and groped by the pastor in 2014. During cross-examination Thursday, Gorham suggested the family was in conflict with Melnichuk in September 2014 and made up the sexual assault allegations to discredit him, which the daughter denied. Earlier on Friday, Gorham wrapped up cross-examination of the daughter. She testified there had been six or seven incidents of hugging that she considered inappropriate. Gorham pressed her for details, such as where and when some of the hugs took place, but the woman could not recall. “If I don’t remember when it happened, how would I possibly know where it happened?” the woman said after Gorham asked about the first hug, in a sometimes tense exchange. “I’m not going to try to come up with an answer to please you right now,” the woman said when Gorham again asked for details. “From the first time you went to police in January 2015, you’ve made this allegation about the hugs. It’s not as if you’re being asked about it for the first time today,” Gorham said. “I know, but it was also two years ago,” she replied. The trial continues Monday with cross-examination of the mother.
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