OHIO
Courthouse News Service

By JEFF D. GORMAN

(CN) – An Ohio church that failed to report an abusive priest owes damages to the teenager he victimized at his next parish, a state appeals court ruled.

Jessica Simpkins said she was 15 when Brian Williams, the senior pastor at Sunbury Grace Brethren Church, raped her in March 2008. Williams was sent to prison for eight years for two counts of sexual battery.

Before Williams was Sunbury’s pastor, he was the youth pastor at Grace Brethren Church in Delaware, Ohio.

After settling her lawsuit against Sunbury for $90,000, Simpkins sued Delaware Grace and Pastor Darrell Anderson for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, infliction of emotional distress and failing to report child abuse.

Simpkins alleged that in the early 1990s, Delaware Grace had learned that Williams had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor female but failed to take action.

Delaware Grace…