TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, June 4, 2014
For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com
Sex abuse victims blast Baptist pastor
He “changes his tune” in child abuse case
Group thinks he should be investigated & charged
Preacher “clearly filed false police report,” SNAP says
Three years after he reported suspected child sex crimes by a church volunteer to police, a Jackson minister went back and tried to “water down” his formal report in an unusual move to apparently try to protect himself and his congregation from civil liability. A civil abuse and cover up case was filed against him and his church last month.
And now a support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging prosecutors to investigate the two very different accounts and possibly charge the minister for making a false police report.
(Read the police report here.)
In 2006, Pastor Mark McSwain of First Church in Bemis reported to police that a church volunteer, Chad Lutrell, was inappropriately touching young girls and kissing one on the mouth. He also said that Lutrell was stalking and harassing adult women.
Three years later, however, in 2009, McSwain backtracked from his original statement. McSwain approached police again, this time telling an officer that Lutrell kissed a child on the cheek, not on the mouth. McSwain also denied that Lutrell had inappropriately touched children, and claimed that Lutrell only sent one adult woman an inappropriate email and follower her home.
“It is very suspicious that the pastor changed his tune so much, especially after three years, and in such self-serving ways” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We hope prosecutors will consider filing charges against McSwain for making a false police report.”
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