Pedophilia RICO Suit Filed Against Global Megachurch

January 14, 2023 Crime, Religion

The Roys Report reports:

Five women in California have filed a lawsuit alleging that the International Churches of Christ perpetrated a “systemic scheme of abuse” that included the sexual abuse of children as young as three years old and financial abuse of its members. The plaintiffs filed a RICO lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against ICOC and its affiliated organizations. The ICOC has more than 120,000 members across 144 countries.

The plaintiffs identify convicted pedophile David Saracino as their abuser and allege the church did not adequately protect them from him. The lawsuit also claims church members were coerced to tithe 10% of their income to the church, to contribute funds to mission trips twice a year and meet a quota for bringing in new members, and that the pressure to comply led some church members to depression and suicide.

The Christian Post reports:



They allege that Saracino would invite children to his house to swim but as soon as they undressed “he told the girls that they needed a bath and he used that opportunity to heavily fondle their naked bodies while they were bathing,” explains the lawsuit.

When the mother of the sisters eventually reported Saracino’s abuse, leaders allegedly alerted him so he could flee town before police could arrest him. The law finally caught up with him in 2012 when he was sentenced to 40 years in prison for raping a 4-year-old child.

Elena Peltola alleges that she was raped in 2012 by an ICOC member when she was just 13, while she was on a mission trip to Honduras. She said when she reported the rape, ICOC and Hope Worldwide leaders “victim-blamed her and called her a ‘slut’ for several months” before kicking her out of the church for being “a liability.”

Tags

© joemygod.com 2025