Woman claiming serial sexual abuse sues Temple Baptist Church

NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Edmundo Carrillo / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Friday, June 2nd, 2017

SANTA FE, N.M. — A woman who claims she was sexually abused by two teachers at the Temple Baptist Church in Santa Fe when she was a child is now suing the church after she married and had children with one of her alleged abusers.

A lawsuit filed in Santa Fe District Court last week maintains that the woman, identified only as “Jane Doe” in the document, was abused hundreds of times while she was enrolled at the church’s school, across Yucca Street from Santa Fe High, in the mid ’90s.

She married one of those men when she turned 18 and she started having children with him at 19, the complaint says, but the couple is now divorced. Neither alleged abuser is identified in the suit.

The abuse happened at the church, as well as homes of church members, including the victim’s home, according to the suit.

The filing says the church had a culture “wherein male leaders held substantial power over the lives of minors – particularly minor female students at the Church and School” and says they “used the power vested in them as teachers, supervisors and as religious figures to sexually abuse Plaintiff as a minor.”

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