RIVERSIDE (CA)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
September 19, 2025
By Mark A. Kellner
Two Romanian men have filed lawsuits accusing a former pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, of sexually abusing and trafficking children at a shelter he operated in Bucharest for nearly a decade. The lawsuits also name Harvest and its prominent pastor Greg Laurie for alleged negligence in failing to prevent the abuse.
The complaints filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in California by Marian Barbu, 33, and Mihai-Constantin Petcu, 40, allege that Paul Havsgaard, a former Harvest missionary and pastor, subjected them and dozens of other children to severe abuse at the shelter.
First reported by The Associated Press, the lawsuits claim Havsgaard lured vulnerable street children with promises of fast food, shelter, and education, only to subject them to “a torture chamber.”
Havsgaard, Christianity Today first disclosed, was listed on an archived Harvest staff web page in 2001, but his name was gone by spring of 2002. The magazine said he first went to Romania in 1998, but by 2002, reports of abuse were already surfacing.
According to the complaints, the men are “hurt, angry and still suffering from PTSD and social difficulties,” said Jef McAllister, a London-based lawyer representing Barbu and Petcu.
The Roys Report (TRR) does not name individuals who claim to be victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly, as Barbu and Petcu have.
The allegations detail a pattern of abuse at the shelter, described by Barbu as “a torture chamber inside a prison.” The lawsuits claim Havsgaard regularly appeared in the bathroom while boys were showering or undressed, staring at them or masturbating in their presence.
Both plaintiffs accuse Havsgaard of “pimping out” older boys for sex work via video chats or at bathhouses, taking a cut of their earnings. The complaints further allege physical abuse, including forcing children to kneel on walnut shells or tying them to beds or radiators.
According to the lawsuits, Havsgaard justified his actions by telling the children, “I know what God wants; what I want, God wants.”
Responding to a comment request from TRR, a Harvest Christian Fellowship, via a spokesperson, called the allegations “serious and disturbing” but argued that the lawsuits wrongly target the church and Laurie.
The church stated, “This misplaced lawsuit wrongly targets Harvest and our pastor as a form of financial extortion. It does not seek the truth, nor does it seek to stop the purported wrongdoer.”
Harvest further asserted that “most of what is in the lawsuits about our church is absolutely and entirely false; some of it is plainly slanderous.”
The lawsuits accuse Greg Laurie and other church leaders of failing to supervise Havsgaard despite repeated red flags raised by donors, visitors, and others who suspected abuse and observed poor living conditions at the shelter.
According to the complaints, the church deposited $17,000 monthly into Havsgaard’s personal bank account. The church also allowed him to return to California with some of the children, using his work with street children in Romania to raise funds for Harvest, the lawsuits state.
Harvest acknowledged it provided financial support to Havsgaard’s initiative “for a period of time,” as it has supported numerous missionaries worldwide. However, the church emphasized that the Romanian organization was separate from Harvest, accusing the plaintiffs of misrepresenting the shelter as part of the church.
“Yet, on countless occasions, the lawsuit’s authors mislabel the very name of the foreign organization to give the misimpression that it was one and the same as Harvest. It was not,” the spokesperson said.
The church stated it has attempted to engage with the plaintiffs and reported the allegations to law enforcement but claimed the men and their lawyer have refused to cooperate with U.S. authorities.
“It is telling that, even though they are making criminal allegations against the perpetrator, the alleged victims have refused to even grant voluntary interviews with law enforcement in the United States,” the Harvest spokesperson added.
McAllister, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, told the news agency he expects to file additional lawsuits in the coming weeks on behalf of at least 20 others who claim they were abused at the shelter.
“Some of them are still illiterate even though they lived in these homes where they were supposed to get an education,” he said. “They have issues with trust. They look after each other.”
Most of the alleged victims live in poverty and seek financial help and vindication, McAllister noted. He added, “They’ve had a hard slog. They would really like to get some sense that they’ve been heard and that the injustices they’ve suffered are recognized.”
Harvest said it intends to “vigorously defend” against the claims in court, citing its belief in God’s Word and referencing Scriptures such as 1 Peter 2:23 and Matthew 5:11, which speak of entrusting oneself to God and enduring false accusations.