Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Evangelical, Pentecostal, and independent Covington, Virginia, USA · 2019

Virginia: COGIC deacon convicted of molesting children from his church's youth department; Supreme Court revives negligence suit against the denomination

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

deacon, Gospel Tabernacle Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Covington, Virginia, youth-department leader and drill-team coach

Organization

Gospel Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, Covington, Virginia, Church of God in Christ, Inc.

Spiritual nexus

Billups held the church office of deacon and ran Gospel Tabernacle's youth department and drill team for children and teens; his victims were girls from the congregation, not his own children, and were placed in his care through the church's own youth programming.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2012-11-01 · criminal conviction

    Circuit Court, Alleghany County, Virginia. Donald Billups, deacon of Gospel Tabernacle COGIC for over a decade, was convicted of 16 sex crimes against seven girls aged 10-16, molested from 2002 through 2012 while he ran the church's youth department and drill team. He was sentenced to two life terms plus 75 years. No appellate reversal of the criminal conviction has been located.

  2. 2019-08-15 · civil appeal, A.H. v. Church of God in Christ, Inc.

    Supreme Court of Virginia. The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed in part a circuit court dismissal and revived a negligence and respondeat superior suit by victim A.H. against the local church and the national COGIC denomination, holding the allegations stated legally viable claims.

Appellate history

  1. No reversal of Billups's 2012 criminal conviction located; the Virginia Supreme Court's 2019 civil decision addressed only the institutional defendants' liability, not Billups's guilt.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • position as church deacon and youth-department leader
  • coached the church's children's and youth drill team
  • access to children through church youth activities over a ten-year tenure

Primary record

Sources

official court judgment civil appellate judgment A.H. v. Church of God in Christ, Inc., 297 Va. 604 (Va. Aug. 15, 2019).

Supreme Court of Virginia opinion reviving A.H.'s negligence claims against the church defendants, reciting that deacon Donald Billups was convicted in 2012 of molesting A.H. and other children over a decade while running the church's youth department and drill team.

secondary press news report COGIC Abuse Watch (2013) 'Former COGIC deacon given 2 life sentences for sexual molestation'.

Contemporaneous report of Billups's 2012 conviction and sentencing to two life terms plus 75 years for molesting seven church girls.

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