Chris Conlee was the pastor at Highpoint Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He supervised Andy Savage [See GOP Predators 324: Andy Savage.] and when the news broke about Jules Woodson, he protected Savage by promoting the false framing that it was a consensual adult sexual encounter even though he knew otherwise. He knew of Savage’s past abuse when he hired him. He knowingly protected Savage and misrepresented him to his church. When Highpoint finished their investigation, they allowed Conlee to resign.
Paige Patterson is a Baptist religious leader who was a big part of the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention and served as the president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Typical of conservative fundamentalists, he opposed the ordination of women. He bragged about telling a woman to stay with her abusive husband because the husband started going to church.
He was sued in 2018 for his part in covering up Paul Pressler’s sexual assaults, but was dropped because of the statute of limitations. Southwestern had him step down and made him President Emeritus. Later in the year, an investigation of the rape of a woman on campus revealed his email to campus security telling them he wanted to meet with the woman alone to “break her down.” He was then completely fired, no more emeritus title and benefits.
In 2019, a woman sued for his abuse and intimidation when she reported being repeatedly raped.by another student. She claimed to be the woman he wanted to break down. He threatened the woman’s mother with legal action for asking why the alleged rapist was still allowed on campus. He told the police that the rape was consensual sex. He told her the rape was a “good thing,” Since then he has given speeches that imply women lie about rape. He has been elected to boards and given posts by belligerently misogynist churches. Patterson claims she never told him.
He has been accused by several men of raping them when they were minors. In 2017, a man came forward suing Judge Pressler, claiming he was raped by Pressler when he was just fourteen and the sexual assaults continued for decades. As often happens, once one person comes forward, others find the courage to come forward as well. According to court records, he settled with another accuser in 2004. He was successful in getting the suit dismissed because of the statute of limitations, but his accuser appealed and won in the Texas Supreme Court in April, 2022.
Robert Bentley was the governor of Alabama when a scandal broke about him having an affair with a married woman. While hypocritical and not nice, it is not necessarily predatory, since they were consenting adults. Except she worked for him so the relationship becomes problematic and not one of equals. In addition, he bullied his other staff who were privy to the affair as they carried on in his office. He also threatened his now ex-wife’s staff when he sent text messages to his lover that linked to his wife’s iPad to ensure she did not find out. Adding to his problems he illegally used public funds to carry on the affair and used campaign funds for personal use.
Joa Arpaio is most well-known for glorying in abusive prison conditions and his racist hatred of Latinos. He was Trump’s favorite sheriff and was convicted of contempt of court for refusing a judge’s order to stop racial profiling. Trump promptly pardoned him. However, contemptible as his treatment of prisoners and immigrants was, he is on the list for his office’s mishandling of more than 400 sexual assault cases.
Matt Chandler is the spiritual leader of a multi-site church known as The Village Church. It is one of the largest Baptist megachurches in the country. When Karen Hinkley’s husband confessed he was a pedophile, she divorced him. Her church punished her for divorcing her husband when he confessed and not seeking reconciliation. Her husband, Jordan Root, the pedophile they did not punish because he repented and was in counseling. The couple had been on a mission in East Asia when he was dismissed for violating their child safety policy. (How is not explained.)
C. J. Mahaney co-founded the Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD with Larry Tomczak in 1982 Tomczak left in 1997 leaving Mahaney at the top. It was a successful megachurch that grew into a religious conglomerate known as Sovereign Grace Ministries. SGM formed churches all over the US, as well as in Mexico and the Philippines. That had 28,000 members around the world.
A three-year-old girl was rapped by a 15-year-old boy who was babysitting her during a church activity. When her family went to the police, the pastors intervened pressuring the family to forgive the rapist and let it go. After two years of pressure, the girl’s family quit the church. That was the first known occasion of the church organizing a cover-up. The mother wrote it up in a blog post for SGM Survivors, where until then people talked more about how controlling the community was. Her post opened the floodgates.
There are several cases of someone coming forward with an abuse allegation and being told to reconcile with the abuser. Children who reported sexual abuse by a parent were not helped but rather hurt because the church told the parent who only abused them more. There is a case of a man raping his adopted daughter. When his wife learns of this she wants a divorce and the church told her not to do it. She got out, and reported it to the police. He went to jail, but SGM lobbied for his early release and has him doing work in contact with children
Cardinal Raymond Burke was only a bishop when he made this list for protecting pedophile priests. He wielded the power of excommunication to attack a local church board and pastor over a church governance conflict. He has excommunicated women who dared to call themselves priests. He has not excommunicated convicted pedophiles.
He blamed women for the rampant pedophilia problem in the church. All those women volunteering at the church make manly men uncomfortable. Then altar girls do their job too well so there are few manly boys taking up church duties. Yes, he thinks the pedophiles are gay.
Burke advanced so far in the church because he appeared to be running his diocese better than the rest. Other diocese were finding about 4% of their priests molested children but his diocese was running at about 1.5%. But that was deceptive. He had fewer pedophile priests removed from service because he let them stay where they were. Burke kept a higher percentage of priests with allegations of child sex abuse in their ministry than any other in the United St
Bob Jones University has a long history of blaming the victims of sexual assault–even when they were assaulted elsewhere. In 2011, the role of BJU board member Chuck Phelps in covering up the rape of a 15-year-old and his demand that she apologize to the congregation for allowing herself to be raped.led to some BJU students speaking up about the University’s blaming victims of sexual assault.
In response, BJU hired an independent organization, GRACE, Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, to investigate the matter in 2012. They let people make reports online and promised to protect students from repercussions when they did interviews. As they neared completion of their report, they were fired. The backlash led to rehired GRACE whose report disclosed a pattern of covering up sexual assault and punishing victims.
Ken Starr is most infamous as the sex-obsessed independent counsel who chose to include prurient sexual details in The Starr Report and in the Senate trial questioning of Monica Lewinsky. That is not why he is featured on this list even though his desire to humiliate and debase Lewinsky certainly displayed misogyny. However, it was in his role as the President of the largest Baptist school in America, Baylor University, where he earned complete ignominy by covering up the rapes of several women enrolled as students there. Protecting the football players was much more important than protecting women. It seems even today Baylor University would like to pretend it never happened.
