ALABAMA
AL.com
By Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com
on July 25, 2014
COLBERT COUNTY, Alabama – A man who says he was a victim of Jeffrey Dale Eddie, a pastor convicted of sex abuse in March, is suing the Colbert County Church that employed Eddie as a children’s minister.
According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, the unnamed victim named as defendants Eddie, Highland Park Baptist Church and Loving the Shoals United Appeal Fund, Inc., a non-profit group affiliated with the church. The suit claims church administrators waited 10 days after learning of the allegations of abuse before reporting them to authorities. The suit also claims the church is still paying salary and benefits to Eddie. No one was available at the church to answer questions this morning.
Eddie, 41, pleaded guilty in Colbert County Circuit Court to 36 counts of sex abuse and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Multiple victims came forward, authorities said.
The victim who filed the lawsuit, who is not named, says he was 11 years old when his abuse by Eddie began in 2001. The alleged victim says Eddie repeatedly touched him inappropriately until 2013. The incidents occurred at church events.
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