Lawyers for sexually abused children announce new lawsuits against the church in Fort Mill

Earlier this month, Erickson Lee, a former North Carolina police officer and youth pastor, was sentenced to nine years in prison in connection with a series of sex crimes against children at a York County megachurch.

On Monday, lawyers for the families of those children announced a series of new lawsuits against Lee as well as against senior officials of the Fort Mill-based MorningStar Fellowship Church, including its founder Rick Joyner.

Additionally, new lawsuits have been filed against David Yarnes, a former vice president of MorningStar, and Douglas Lee, the church's former security chief and father of Erickson Lee.

Randy Hood of the law firm McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips said these church leaders ignored years of exploitation and abuse and never reported several incidents or allegations to police – incidents that were “supposedly handled internally,” the firm said in a statement.

“There were people who had the capacity and ability to stop this from happening,” Hood said at a press conference in Rock Hill on Monday. “They were all part of the leadership of MorningStar Church.”

According to one of the complaints filed, MorningStar leaders “created a youth program with sleepovers and camping trips and allowed a relative of one of the church youth program leaders to host, assign rooms and tents, and spend time alone with male minors without supervision.”

The lawsuit alleges that Erickson Lee “provided alcohol, e-cigarettes and pornography to children ages 13 and older” and later sexually exploited and abused several boys.

Lee was convicted of the crimes on September 5. He was found guilty under an Alford plea, which means that defendants can claim innocence but believe their chances of being acquitted at trial are too slim because there are “sufficient actual grounds for the defendant's guilt,” according to George Mason University.

Under South Carolina law, an Alford plea is considered an admission of guilt.

In an emailed statement, MorningStar officials said, “Our greatest concern is and remains the emotional and spiritual well-being of the young men and their families.”

The church said it had thoroughly investigated Lee, adding that Lee had even managed to hide aspects of his past from the Cornelius, North Carolina, police department, where he worked.

“While we do not know at this time what more we could have done to vet Officer Lee beforehand and ensure he would not have taken advantage of these young men,” the statement said, “we bear no resentment or anger toward the young men or their parents who chose to file suit. Some of these families remained active in our church even months after Officer Lee's arrest, and they are always welcome at MorningStar.”

The church also expressed “sadness, shock and horrification at Lee's mistreatment of the four young men,” but rejected McGowan Hood's allegation that some of the sexual abuse cases occurred on church grounds.