{"id":18488,"date":"2026-02-11T03:52:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T03:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18488"},"modified":"2026-02-11T03:52:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T03:52:39","slug":"women-claimed-umc-entities-failed-to-properly-respond-to-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18488","title":{"rendered":"Women claimed UMC entities failed to properly respond to abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/> By  Michael Gryboski<span class=\"quiet\">, Editor Monday, February 09, 2026<\/span><a class=\"reporter-twitter\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MichaelGryboski\" rel=\"noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Quick Summary<\/h2>\n<p>AI Summary<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul\">\n<li>Two women have filed a lawsuit against multiple United Methodist Church entities in Ohio.<\/li>\n<li>The plaintiffs allege failure to respond to sexual abuse by a former church music director.<\/li>\n<li>The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for negligence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"summary-disclosure\">An artificial intelligence-powered tool created this summary based on the source article. The summary has undergone review and verification by an editor.<\/p>\n<p>See <span\/> Summary<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"photo-des\">View of the stage during the United Methodist Church&#8217;s special session General Conference inside the Dome at America&#8217;s Center in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019.<\/span> | <span class=\"credit\">United Methodist News Service\/Kathleen Barry<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Two women have filed a complaint against multiple United Methodist Church entities, alleging that they failed to appropriately respond to abuse that they experienced from a former church music director.<\/p>\n<p>The unnamed plaintiffs are Ohio residents represented by the Orlando, Florida-based Newsome Law, P.A., and the Cleveland, Ohio-based Spangenberg Shibley &amp; Liber LLP.<\/p>\n<p>A Spangenberg representative emailed The Christian Post a copy of the lawsuit, which was filed in the Ohio Court of Common Pleas for Franklin County last week.<\/p>\n<p>Defendants named in the complaint include the UMC General Council on Finance and Administration, the UMC West Ohio Conference, the UMC Great Miami River District, Christian UMC of Baltimore, Ohio (formerly known as St. Andrew UMC), Parkview UMC of Plain City, Ohio, and the United Methodist Children\u2019s Home, also called UMCH Family Services. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to the complaint, \u201cJane Doe\u201d and \u201cMary Doe\u201d were abused as minors by an individual named John Slate, described as \u201ca former cult member living in Venezuela,\u201d who served as music ministries director at the two churches.<\/p>\n<p>Slate was convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and pandering obscenity involving a minor in 2017. In 2019, he was again convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSlate groomed and repeatedly sexually assaulted Jane Doe and Mary Doe over the course of years \u2014 even though Defendants were on actual and constructive notice of Slate\u2019s inappropriate relationship with these young girls,\u201d the suit alleged. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDefendants are liable to Plaintiffs for failing to prevent and stop sexual abuse of which they had actual and\/or constructive knowledge; for authorizing, condoning, ratifying, and encouraging policies and practices that permitted abuse; and for creating and maintaining a culture and conditions at St. Andrew and Parkview that enabled Slate to repeatedly abuse Plaintiffs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The UMC West Ohio Conference emailed CP a statement on Thursday confirming that they were \u201cinformed late Tuesday that a lawsuit had been filed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe take seriously any complaints of this nature and are looking into the matter,\u201d stated the UMC regional body. \u201cOur prayers are with all involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the suit, in 2014, when Slate was working for St. Andrew UMC, Jane Doe\u2019s parents had alerted the pastor that \u201cSlate had been sexually grooming, assaulting, and abusing their daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, according to the complaint, \u201cDefendants did not report Slate\u2019s crime to the police\u201d and \u201cdid not follow the Safe Sanctuaries Protocol of the United Methodist Church.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite having notice, Defendants allowed Slate to remain employed at the St. Andrew United Methodist Church as their Music Director and to continue having contact with minors \u2014 and even protected him by transferring Slate to Parkview,\u201d alleged the suit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead, Defendants\u2019 conscious disregard for child safety allowed a known child predator to move to another United Methodist Church, Parkview Church, where he sexually assault Mary Doe and continued to sexually assault Jane Doe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit accuses the various UMC entities of negligence and failure to report suspected abuse of a minor, and demands compensatory damages, punitive and\/or exemplary damages; attorneys\u2019 fees and similar costs, as well as \u201call such other relief to which the Plaintiffs are entitled and\/or the Court deems equitable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dustin Herman, a partner at Spangenberg who is helping to represent the women, told CP on Friday that he took up the case \u201cbecause there was an injustice done and our clients are looking to get justice from those accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Follow Michael Gryboski on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MichaelGryboski?hc_ref=SEARCH&amp;fref=nf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Twitter <\/a> or Facebook<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michael Gryboski, Editor Monday, February 09, 2026 Quick Summary AI Summary Two women have filed a lawsuit against multiple United Methodist Church entities in Ohio. The plaintiffs allege failure to respond to sexual abuse by a former church music director. The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for negligence. An artificial intelligence-powered tool created<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2041,5995,5996,907,5997,3639,4001,106],"class_list":{"0":"post-18488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-claimed","10":"tag-entities","11":"tag-failed","12":"tag-properly","13":"tag-respond","14":"tag-umc","15":"tag-women"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}