Point Loma Nazarene is being sued for unspecified monetary compensation because they placed a ministry student in a pastor’s home, 30 years ago, but neglected to tell the family that the student had a conviction for child molestation, as reported by Sign on San Diego for The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Point Loma Nazarene University is a church-affiliated school.
The lawsuit contends that the ministry student molested both the couple’s children – a 6 year-old girl and 2-½ year old boy.
The student, Steven Conrad Thomas, living with the family as a summer pastoral intern, allegedly told Point Nazarene officials, repeatedly, that he had a felony child molestation conviction in 1978.
Besides monetary damages, the lawsuit, cleared by an appellate court, is also seeking changes in the procedures at Point Loma Nazarene.
The trial will take place in the San Diego Superior Court.
Vince Finaldi, the attorney representing the now grown brother and sister – that have chosen to remain anonymous – said, “This is the most reckless placement of a student in a family’s house that I can conceive of. He enrolled in Point Loma Nazarene University. He wanted to be a youth minister, his probation required him to tell them.”
Finaldi continued, “They sent him up to live with a pastor in Berkeley, and work at his church. The pastor had two small kids. But they never told the pastor or his wife. And he ends up sexually abusing both the boy and the girl.”
The lawyers, representing Point Loma Nazarene, and the university’s spokeswoman, have not issued a comment on the pending litigation.
Per the lawsuit, when the abuse occurred in 1982, the girl reported it to her mother and also to law enforcement authorities. Thomas pleaded guilty and served prison time.
Thomas, now 50, is back in state prison for other, unrelated, sex offenses against minor children.
In 2008, both of the now-adult children filed their lawsuit against Point Loma Nazarene.
Finaldi reported, “That’s when they started realizing that the problems they were experiencing were related to the childhood sexual abuse.”
San Diego Superior Court Judge, Luis R. Vargas, was asked by the lawyers for Point Loma Nazarene to dismiss the case. The university lawyers argued that the statue of limitations had run out for the siblings to file a case.
Judge Vargas declined their request for dismissal.
University lawyers then asked the 4th District Court of Appeals to dismiss the case – based on the same grounds.
But on February 7 three judges on a panel denied that petition as well.
The trial was cleared for September unless a settlement is reached beforehand.
Finaldi said that the parents no longer reside in California, but, “The father is still a minister in the Nazarene Church. The mother is very active, too. They are both professors. It hasn’t really affected their faith, but it has affected their confidence in the people who run the church.”
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