Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Sumter, SC, USA · 2020

Larry Durant: affirmed twenty-year sentence for abuse presented as prayer and spiritual protection

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

founder and lead pastor of Word International Ministries, spiritual leader conducting private prayer meetings with teenage congregants

Organization

Word International Ministries in Sumter

Spiritual nexus

The state supreme court found that Durant exercised spiritual leadership and pastoral trust to isolate teenage congregants in private prayer meetings. He represented sexual contact as part of prayer for health, disease prevention and good fortune, invoked scripture to groom them and threatened misfortune if they refused or disclosed the conduct. The religious pretext was the documented method of access and coercion.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Spiritual healing or treatment
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

Date in cited record · jury verdict and sentence

South Carolina circuit court in Sumter County. A jury convicted Durant of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor, and the court sentenced him to twenty years in prison. The published appellate opinion does not state the trial judgment date.
2020-05-06 · direct appeal, Opinion No. 27964

Supreme Court of South Carolina. The court affirmed the conviction and sentence. It held that evidence of similar abuse was admissible because Durant used the same position of trust, spiritual leadership, private-prayer setting, scripture and threatened misfortune across the accounts.

Appellate history

Date in cited record · undefined

undefined

Documented coercion mechanisms

private prayer meetings
sexual contact presented as prayer for health and good fortune
scripture used for grooming
threats of misfortune for refusal or disclosure
claims of divine direction
pastoral authority over girls raised in the church

Primary record

Sources

official state supreme court opinion final appellate judgment and nexus Supreme Court of South Carolina, State v. Durant, Opinion No. 27964 (May 6, 2020).: The official opinion records the single conviction, twenty-year sentence, final affirmance and evidence that Durant used pastoral authority, private prayer, scripture, health claims and threatened misfortune to facilitate abuse.
state supreme court opinion reproduction accessible opinion copy Supreme Court of South Carolina, State v. Durant, Opinion No. 27964 (official opinion reproduced by Justia).: The accessible reproduction preserves the full factual and procedural record, including the distinction between the tried count and similar-acts testimony.

Contextual record

Background & context

Institutional and pattern-level sources on Christian institutions & contexts, not specific to this one case.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice (2004) 'The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950-2002' [the 'John Jay Report'], via Bishop-Accountability.org. Available at: bishop-accountability.org (Accessed: 15 July 2026).: The American bishops' own commissioned study — 'authorized and paid for by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)' — found that 'the total number of Catholic priests and deacons in the United States who have been accused of sexual abuse of children is 4,392' and that 'A total of 10,667 individuals made allegations of child sexual abuse by priests.' Because the study relied on the dioceses' own files, these figures are widely regarded as a floor, not a ceiling.
Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (2009) 'The Ryan Report' [Irish statutory inquiry, summarized at Wikipedia; primary at gov.ie]. Available at: en.wikipedia.org (Accessed: 15 July 2026).: Ireland's ten-year state inquiry into Catholic-run residential institutions — the strongest tier of documentation there is, a statutory commission chaired by a judge — found that 'Sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions' and that 'testimony had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential.'
Al Jazeera (2021) 'French clergy sexually abused 'over 200,000 children' since 1950', Al Jazeera, 5 October [reporting the CIASE/Sauvé Report]. Available at: aljazeera.com (Accessed: 15 July 2026).: France's independent CIASE commission (the Sauvé Report) produced the largest estimate ever made of clergy abuse in one country: 'About 216,000 children are estimated to have been sexually abused by thousands of French Catholic priests, deacons and other clergy since 1950' — 'a number which could rise to 330,000 when including abuse by lay members.' The commission called the abuse 'systemic' and found the Church had shown 'deep, total and even cruel indifference for years.' Note: these are the commission's epidemiological estimates, not case-by-case adjudications — an independent commission established at the bishops' request but operating independently.

Show 2 more context sources

FLOODLIT.org (2025) 'Christopher Michael Jensen' [LDS abuse case database; settlement documents made public 2025]. Available at: floodlit.org (Accessed: 15 July 2026).: Christopher Michael Jensen 'was a Mormon church member in Utah and West Virginia; sentenced to 35 to 75 years in prison for sexually abusing two children; local LDS church coverup alleged; LDS church settled civil lawsuit mid-trial in 2018 for $32 million, also spending over $27 million on legal fees; FLOODLIT.org discovered the settlement details in 2025 and made them public for the first time.' Note: Jensen's conviction is a standing criminal outcome; the $32M is a civil settlement, not an adjudication of the church's liability, and the cover-up remains alleged.
Charity Commission for England and Wales (2017) 'Investigation leads to improvements in safeguarding at Jehovah's Witnesses charity', GOV.UK. Available at: gov.uk (Accessed: 15 July 2026).: A statutory regulatory finding, in the Commission's own words: trustees of the Manchester New Moston Congregation 'did not deal adequately with allegations of child abuse made against one of the trustees', failed to identify one allegation as potential child abuse — 'dismissing it as ‘a matter between 2 teenagers’' — and abuse victims were effectively required to repeat their allegations 'in the presence of the abuser, and the abuser was permitted to question the alleged victims.' Trustees also 'did not provide accurate and complete answers' to the Commission itself. A related honesty note: a Montana jury's $35M verdict against Watchtower (Nunez, 2018) was unanimously reversed by the Montana Supreme Court in 2020, which held the organization exempt from the state's mandatory-reporting statute because its doctrine required confidentiality — the standing law from that case is the exemption, not the verdict, and it is recorded here as such.

Related record

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