North Texas family sues First Baptist Dallas over alleged sexual abuse on mission trip
A family in North Texas is suing First Baptist Dallas over claims of sexual abuse.
The lawsuit alleges the sexual abuse happened to the family's son while on a San Diego mission trip in 2022.
The family is suing for more than $1 million in damages for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. In addition to the church, pastors Ryland Whitehorn and Alan Lynch are named as defendants.
According to the lawsuit, the victim, who was just out of 8th grade, was invited to the room of four 10th-grade boys while on the San Diego trip. After watching an R-rated movie on Netflix, one of the 10th-grade boys abused the teen, the lawsuit alleges.
The family said the boy and his mother were already concerned about safety on the mission trip because he was threatened while attending a previous church-sponsored event. In June of 2022, the boy was at a youth "adventure camp" in New Mexico when a fellow teen allegedly held a knife to his throat.
The lawsuit alleges that church officials discouraged the family from pressing charges related to the incident and reassured them that the mission trip to San Diego the following month would have more supervision.
The final night of the San Diego mission trip
Unlike the rest of the trip, the teenagers did not have a curfew on the last night in San Diego. The only restriction, according to the lawsuit, was that the teenagers could not interact with people from the opposite sex.
The victim and other boys his age went to a room of 10th-grade boys at 11 p.m., according to the lawsuit. A minister was in the room for about 30 minutes. Before the minister left, he advised the victim to go back to his room but the older boys said they wanted him to stay, which the minister allowed, the lawsuit alleges.
Later on, the boys watched a violent and sexually graphic R-rated movie on Netflix. After it ended, the lawsuit alleges that one of the older boys sexually abused the victim, and another boy witnessed it. The victim returned to his room around 1 a.m.
The next day, the lawsuit says, the boy who witnessed the abuse told the younger boys not to discuss what happened. The victim did not report the abuse out of fear of shame or retaliation.
About two months later, a church official called the victim and his mother to an urgent meeting without revealing any other details. They ended up meeting with Lynch, the minister of pastoral care and counseling, and Whitehorn, the executive pastor of ministries.
At the meeting, Lynch lectured the victim and tried to "intimidate, threaten and confuse" him, the lawsuit states. From that point on, Lynch "attempted to intimidate and bully them into silence, and the victim and his family were excluded from certain church activities, according to the lawsuit.
The family also said that the boy who abused their son had abused another boy on an earlier church-sponsored trip. That incident had also been reported to the church, and officials similarly discouraged that victim's family from reporting it.
The lawsuit says the church does not have a policy to report claims of sexual abuse of minors to police, and their son's abuse was never reported.
First Baptist Dallas denied the allegations
For its part, the church said authorities concluded that it was "consensual sexual activity."
"The alleged incident involved sexual activity between two male teenage parishioners," the church said in a statement. "Immediately upon learning of the subject allegation, it was reported to the necessary applicable law enforcement agencies. After extensive investigations, including interviews with eyewitnesses, each law enforcement agency indicated this was consensual sexual activity and closed any and all respective cases."
