A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of two young women who were raped by a former youth pastor of a Carpinteria church. The suit not only targets the former pastor and the church itself, but names the church’s local, regional and national organizations, as well.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, only days after a third young woman filed suit against the same defendants, alleging that she, too, was sexually abused by the former youth minister.
In August 2013, Louis Bristol, who worked as a youth pastor at Carpinteria Community Church, 1111 Vallecito Road, pleaded guilty to having sex with two teenage girls. He was sentenced to a year in County Jail.
Bristol, now 30, also was ordered to stay out of Carpinteria, and is now registered as a sex offender. The National Sex Offender Registry records his last known address at an apartment in the 400 block of West Padre Street in Santa Barbara.
In their lawsuit, the two young women whom Bristol was convicted of sexually abusing alleged childhood sexual abuse, sexual battery, negligence, fraud and other charges, and they asked for a jury trial.
The third young woman, who reported her abuse after the others came forward, made the same allegations and requests in her own court filing. No charges have been filed in the second case.
In addition to Bristol, both lawsuits list as defendants Carpinteria Community Church, the Presbytery of Santa Barbara, the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii and the Presbyterian Church USA.
Also listed in the filings is Holiday Inn Express & Suites, which employed Bristol as an assistant manager at its Carpinteria hotel, at 5606 Carpinteria Ave., where some of the abuses took place.
The defendants will have 30 days to respond from the time they were served, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Tim Hale, a partner at Nye, Peabody, Stirling, Hale & Miller LLP of Santa Barbara.
Hale maintains that the defendants did not report the abuses to law enforcement, an allegation that Carpinteria Community Church disputes.
The lawsuits state that the three plaintiffs were minors at the time of the abuse, and that Bristol began grooming them for sexual abuse, which occurred while he was working for the church.
The suits also name the Presbytery and Synod because they had authority over operations during the abuse, with the power to terminate Bristol’s involvement with the church.
The lawsuits allege a pattern of concealing the identities of abusers in the Presbyterian Church, and that the defendants “have greatly increased the danger to children by failing to report childhood sexual abuse” to law enforcement, and “by continuing to transfer or approve transfer of perpetrators, after allegations of abuse arise, from one Presbytery to another, into unsuspecting churches and communities.”
The lawsuits state that the defendants had a “policy of secrecy” that created a hidden culture of sexual abuse.
A statement issued last week by Carpinteria Community Church said church officials are aware of the lawsuit.
“Mr. Bristol has been processed through the criminal justice system,” the statement said. “The church has completely cooperated with law enforcement.
“We can unequivocally state, contrary to the allegations in the lawsuit, that neither the Church nor the Presbytery had any knowledge of any inappropriate activity during Mr. Bristol’s employment.”
The statement asserts that the allegations against Bristol were “immediately reported to authorities.”
“Our hearts go out to all of those affected by this situation,” the Rev. Jarrett Johnson, the church’s pastor, said in the statement. “We will be keeping them in prayer and invite the community to do so as well throughout this process.”
The lawsuits outline Bristol’s involvement with the church, noting he joined as a youth member in 2000 and, by 2004, was working with youth there as a member of the worship team. He also worked at Holiday Inn Express & Suites.
Not long after, the lawsuits state, a Carpinteria Community Church leader received a report that Bristol was having an inappropriate relationship with one of the plaintiffs, a 16-year-old girl who was a member of the church.
“No report was made to law enforcement or child protective services, and no warning was provided to church members,” the lawsuits allege.
Bristol was allowed to keep working with youth, the suits claim, adding that he continued to sexually assault the girl, openly taking her to the Holiday Inn Express even though she was a minor and not a registered guest at the hotel.
The suits say he sexually abused the girl during or after youth meetings at the church, as well as at other locations, such as at religious conferences and retreats at which he supervised the youth group.
According to the filings, Bristol also “exploited the counseling and mentor relationship he developed with the plaintiff,” counseling her through her parents’ divorce.
The lawsuits state that the church began receiving notice of Bristol’s misconduct as early as 2005.
In 2012, the suits say, a church pastor received another report of sexual misconduct by Bristol, directed at a second victim, but did not report Bristol to law enforcement. Instead, the suits allege, the girl was directed to tell Bristol about the accusation.
Later that year, Bristol raped that victim at the Holiday Inn Express on two different occasions.
A third victim also was raped at the hotel, the lawsuits state.
Although Bristol is named as a defendant, both lawsuits also provide details about another former Presbyterian Church youth leader as an example to reinforce the allegation that church officials did not report abuse as they were made aware of it. The second individual was never convicted of sexual abuse.
The lawsuits state that Jeff Peterson-Davis, a former youth ministry intern at First Presbyterian of Santa Barbara, sexually abused a child from the church in 1984.
Noozhawk reached out to Peterson-Davis for comment, but has received no response.
When the child’s mother approached the pastor at the time, the official expelled Peterson-Davis, with no explanation provided to the congregation. According to the lawsuits, the circumstances left “Peterson-Davis free to continue to prey upon unsuspecting children, and left other victims at First Presbyterian unaware that they were not Peterson-Davis’ only victims.”
In addition, the lawsuits state, the pastor recommended Peterson-Davis for another job at First Presbyterian Church Oxnard, where he allegedly went on to abuse two brothers at the church.
One of the victims reported the abuse to a Presbyterian camp leader, who did not report the incident to law enforcement, but instead orchestrated a confrontation between the victim and abuser, the suits allege.
“When Peterson-Davis denied the allegation, the camp leader’s response was to advise the perpetrator and his victim to agree to disagree,” the lawsuits state.
No report was made to authorities, and Peterson-Davis continued to work at the church, which is located at 850 Ivywood Drive in Oxnard. During that time, Peterson-Davis was also a student at Westmont College in Montecito, where youth from his Oxnard ministry would sometimes visit or stay with him, the lawsuits state.
The two brothers who said they had been victimized by Peterson-Davis notified their pastor of the alleged abuse in 1994, and also reported the presence of another victim.
Peterson-Davis was asked to stop preaching, but again the abuse went unreported to law enforcement, the suits say.
The lawsuits say Peterson-Davis moved on to churches in Atlanta and in Solon, Ohio. At least one additional victim came forward reporting abuse but no reports were ever filed with law enforcement, the suits state.
“As a result, he has no criminal record, is not registered as a sex offender and is unidentifiable to anyone other than his victims,” the suits state.
According to a report from the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, a meeting was held in 2013 to discuss Peterson-Davis’ alleged actions. The report outlines the account of five victims.
The lawsuits state that reporting the crimes directly to law enforcement made all the difference.
“But for the fact that three of Bristol’s victims reported their abuse directly to law enforcement, Bristol, like Peterson-Davis, would almost certainly have escaped criminal conviction, would still be working with children, and would still be unidentifiable to the public as a sexual predator,” the lawsuits state.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
