Earlier this month, a former North Carolina police officer and youth minister, Erickson Lee, was sentenced to nine years in prison in connection with a series of sex crimes involving children at a York County megachurch.
On Monday, the attorneys representing the families of those children announced a series of newly filed lawsuits against Lee, as well as against senior leaders of MorningStar Fellowship Church, based in Fort Mill, including its founder, Rick Joyner.
New lawsuits also were filed against David Yarnes, a former vice president of MorningStar, and Douglas Lee, the church’s former head of security and Erickson Lee’s father.
Randy Hood, of the law firm McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips, said these church leaders turned a blind eye to years of exploitation and abuse, never reporting several incidents or accusations to police — incidents that were "supposedly handled in house," according to a statement from the firm.
“There were people that had the capacity and the ability to prevent this from occurring,” Hood said at a press conference in Rock Hill Monday. “They were all executive leadership of MorningStar Church.”
According to one of the filed complaints, leaders of MorningStar “created a youth program involving overnight events and campouts and allowed a relative of one of the church youth program leaders to host, make room and tent assignments and spend time alone with young minor males with no oversight.”
The suit claims Erickson Lee “provided alcohol, vapes, and pornography to children as young as 13” and later sexually exploited and abused several boys.
Lee was sentenced in connection with the crimes on Sept. 5. He was convicted as part of an Alford plea, which means that defendants can claim innocence but perceive their chances of acquittal at trial to be too risky in the face of “sufficient factual basis of guilt against the defendant,” according to George Mason University.
South Carolina law records an Alford plea as a guilty plea.
In an emailed statement, representatives of MorningStar said, "Our principal concern is, and always will be, the emotional and spiritual well-being of the young men and their families."
The church said it thoroughly vetted Lee, adding that Lee was able to hide aspects of his background from even the Cornelius, N.C., Police Department, where he worked.
"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," the statement reads, "we hold no malice or anger towards the young men or their parents who have chosen to file suit. Some of these families remained active in our church even for months after Officer Lee's arrest, and they are always welcome at MorningStar."
The church also said it was "saddened, shocked, and appalled by the mistreatment of four young men" by Lee, but refuted McGowan Hood's accusation that any of the sexual abuse incidents happened on church property.
