Lawsuit alleges decades-long molestation by former Texas lawmaker.
Former Texas state judge and lawmaker Paul Pressler has been hit with a lawsuit that alleges he molested a man over the course of 35 years.
Pressler, a former justice on the 14th Court of Appeals, who served in the Texas House from 1957 to 1959, vehemently denied the allegations by Gareld Duane Rollins, who claims that Pressler began molesting him in 1979, when he was 14, through the year 2014.
The suit also names Pressler’s wife, Nancy, his law partner Jared Woodfill, the First Baptist Church of Houston, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and its president, the Rev. Paige Patterson. Rollins seeks $1 million in damages.
The suit alleges that Pressler enrolled Rollins in Bible study and began molesting and raping him in his master bedroom study.
The suit also alleges that Pressler told Rollins he could stop at any time, but that Rollins thought God had sanctioned the rapes. The suit says the molestation occurred two to three times per month while Rollins attended college.
This may be just an attempt extort $1M in damages in this time where we are seeing a barrage of such claims. Claiming Pressler is a homosexual abuser just adds spice to the case to increase publicity.
But if true, Pressler has ruined a man’s life from age 14 on. Why only $1M if this is an extortion attempt given what this man has got through - PTSD, alcoholism/drugs (partial fault, imo), forgery (Rollins’s fault, imo), several jailings over decades?
But consider the following from the link above:
“I have never before agreed to be actively involved in helping someone be released from prison and rehabilitated, but I am willing in this situation because I really believe in Duane,” Pressler wrote on Aug. 10, 2000.
Rollins was denied on that occasion, but he successfully received parole in 2002, after Pressler wrote a letter saying he would employ Rollins to handle personal matters for him, including driving him to speaking engagements. The job would allow Rollins time to finish his college education, Pressler wrote.
“I would be personally involved in every bit of Duane’s life with supervision and control,” Pressler wrote in that May 22, 2002, letter.
However, Rollins was arrested for driving under the influence in Houston in 2004, which led to a string of arrests and jail stints over the next decade-plus. In 2015, he told a psychologist about the alleged molestation and began receiving treatment. A letter from psychiatrist Dr. Harvey Rosenstock that is included in the case file says that Rollins likely suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from childhood sexual trauma.
Do you think this would be a rational action supporting Rollin's release from jail, if (1) there is no truth in the molestation allegations or (2) there is truth?
Here is the Lawsuit. Read it, it gives many horrid details over many years between Pressler. It also gives the reason the co-defendants (Paige Patterson, SWTS, FBC Houston, Pressler's wife and law partner). It also includes much theological discussion (Inerrancy, calvinism, etc.) which seems out of place to me (at least I have not figured out the connection; but I have not read all of the lawsuit yet).
I thought it worthy of discussion here.
I’ll add more but right now I need to go see my 2 year old grandson in a Christmas program.