“They’ve had a hard slog,” an attorney for the two plaintiffs said. “They would really like to get some sense that they’ve been heard and that the injustices they’ve suffered are recognized.”
A former megachurch pastor is being sued by two Romanian men, who claim they were sexually abused and trafficked by the preacher when they were still children.
According to NBC News, the lawsuits were filed on behalf of two plaintiffs: 33-year-old Marian Barbu and 40-year-old Mihai-Constantin Petcu. Both name former Harvest Christian Fellowship pastor and missionary Paul Havsgaard as a defendant, along with the church’s founder, Greg Laurie.
Notably, Laurie is charged with failing to prevent abuse; neither lawsuit accuses him of actively engaging in any form of exploitation.
Attorneys for the two plaintiffs say that Havsgaard, while running a shelter in Romania, preyed on young, hungry, and desperate street children. Jef McAllister, a London-based lawyer representing Barbu and Petcu, said his clients are “hurt, angry, and still suffering PTSD and social difficulties” as a result of Havsgaard’s alleged misconduct.
Harvard Christian Fellowship has since said that, while the allegations detailed by the lawsuit are “shocking,” Havsgaard should be the only named defendant.
“This misplaced lawsuit wrongly targets Harvest Riverside and our pastor as a form of financial extortion,” the statement said. “It does not seek the truth nor does it seek to stop the purported wrongdoer.”
However, though the lawsuit does not suggest that Harvest and its founder engaged in or tolerated abuse, it does claim that Hagsvaard’s co-defendants ignored red flags and reports of suspicious activity from donors, visitors, and other persons who noted evidence of both child sexual exploitation and substandard living conditions at the shelter.
Instead of conducting an investigation, the men say, Harvest Christian Fellowship allowed Havsgaard to operate with little oversight, depositing $17,000 each month to his bank account.
Harvest told NBC News that, while it funded Havsgaard’s shelter for a “period of time,” most of the counts “in the lawsuits about our church [are] absolutely and entirely false; some of it is plainly slanderous.”
Havsgaard later returned to California, ostensibly on a fund-raising trip, with several of the children he is accused of abusing in tow.
McAllister says that he expects to file lawsuits on behalf of at least 20 others who claim to have been 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.”
McAllister also said that many of these same children are still living in abject poverty.
“They’ve had a hard slog,” he said. “They would really like to get some sense that they’ve been heard and that the injustices they’ve suffered are recognized.”
Sources
Ex-California megachurch pastor accused of child sex abuse and trafficking by alleged victims
Lawsuits accuse former California megachurch pastor of child sex abuse in Romania
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