MorningStar Ministries defends itself after ex-volunteer accused of sexual abuse
Officials at Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries in South Carolina suggested they shouldn't be blamed for the sexual abuse former volunteer and ex-police officer Erickson Douglas Lee allegedly committed against multiple young boys who participated in one of its youth programs, as two more alleged victims filed lawsuits against the ministry.
“We are aware that several young men have filed lawsuits against the ministry. While we don’t know at this point what more we could have done to have vetted Officer Lee in advance to ensure that he would not have taken advantage of these young men, we hold no malice or anger towards the young men or their parents who have chosen to file suit,” reads a statement the ministry provided to The Christian Post.
“Some of these families remained active in our church even for months after Officer Lee's arrest, and they are always welcome at MorningStar.”
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Lee was sentenced to nine years in prison on Sept. 6 after he pleaded guilty under an Alford plea to second and third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child, first-degree assault and battery, dissemination of obscene material to a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, The Herald reported.
In a 40-page lawsuit filed in August, one of Lee’s victims, John Doe No. 1, and his parents accused Joyner, along with several top officials of the organization and multiple other staff members, of gross negligence for allegedly engaging in the cover-up of multiple incidences of sexual abuse in the ministry.
The lawsuit named Joyner, MorningStar Fellowship Church, Joyner's second in command, David Yarns; the former volunteer; the volunteer's father and MorningStar Fellowship Church's head of security, Douglas Lee; Erickson Douglas Lee's assistant, Chase Portello; along with unidentified defendants James Smith 1-10 (any other agents and/or employees of the ministry associated with the complaint).
John Doe No. 2 made similar allegations in a lawsuit filed on Sept. 3, while John Doe No. 3 filed a similar lawsuit against the defendants on Sept. 5 regarding the abuse that took place from August 2021 through January 2023.
Randy Hood and Chad McGowan of the law firm McGowan, Hood, Felder, and Phillips represent the plaintiffs. They said in a statement to CP that they identified the victims as John Does to protect their identities. At least one of the victims was just 13 years old when Lee allegedly started to abuse him.
John Doe No. 1’s lawsuit alleges that before Lee sexually assaulted him and the other minor boys, MorningStar Fellowship Church swept other sexual abuse and exploitation cases under the rug and never reported them to law enforcement.
Lawyers for the victims further alleged in the filing that several defendants witnessed Lee’s misconduct firsthand and did nothing to stop it. Chase Portello, who assisted Lee in the youth program, allegedly helped Lee threaten and intimidate his victims.
“The simple fact is that the leaders of MorningStar Fellowship Church not only failed to protect these young victims, they enabled and protected their abuser even after witnessing much of the abuse firsthand,” said Hood in his statement to CP. “They had the chance to do the right thing on multiple occasions but, instead, tried to sweep it under the rug with at least one of them trying to help Lee try and intimidate his young victims.”
MorningStar Ministries officials claim they had no reason to suspect Lee, 25, was a child sex predator.
“One of the reasons that this matter is so shocking to us is that the former volunteer, who has been convicted, is a former police officer. Because of his status as a police officer, we had no reason to believe that Officer Lee would lead any young men into illegal activity, either through illegal sexual activities or illegally furnishing alcohol to minors,” the ministry told CP.
“We believed his status as a police officer meant that he would be a protector of these young men rather than one who would impose illegal acts upon them. As we have often asked ourselves in the aftermath, if we can’t trust a police officer as a youth worker, who can we trust?”
MorningStar Ministries officials further noted that Lee went through several background checks before working with the ministry — including the military — and those checks still weren’t enough.
“Based on our internal review of the matter, we believe that at least three separate background checks were run on the volunteer, including one by the United States Military, a second by the Cornelius Police Department, and one run internally by our ministry, using a private background-check company. We believe Officer Lee held a national security clearance by the United States Marine Corps, meaning he was most likely subject to an elevated background check,” the ministry said. “We relied on these checks, which raised no reasons for us to be concerned about Officer Lee. We felt confident at the time in his perceived stability and reliability partly because of his status as a police officer.”
MorningStar Ministries also alleged that Lee lived at the home of one of the victims where the abuse occurred, and they had no knowledge of his living arrangement at the time.
“We have since learned that the address reflected in the warrants as the site of any criminal activity was where the accused, Officer Lee, apparently lived on the same property as one of the victim's families,” MorningStar Ministries said.
“It is our understanding that Officer Lee moved into a garage apartment, which was attached to the home occupied by one of the victim's families, had apparently been invited to live there without the church knowing about it, and lived with one of the victim's families, apparently at the family's invitation, for some time.”
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