CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A woman is suing a North Olmsted church where the former youth pastor groomed and sexually abused her nearly a decade ago.
The victim, now in her 20s, says the Columbia Road Baptist Church failed to ensure her safety as Brian Mitchell made repeated sexual remarks to her and inserted himself as a father figure in her life after her own father died. Mitchell ultimately sexually abused her multiple times over the course of two months when she was 16 years old.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, includes claims that the church was negligent in its hiring practices, violated its duty of care to her and caused her emotional distress. It also includes claims against Mitchell for assault and battery.
Mitchell has served eight years of a 10-year prison sentence he received in 2016 after pleading guilty to sexually abusing her. He was 31 years when he was arrested.
Attorney Andy Goldwasser said the woman has been struggling since she came forward to report the abuse in 2015. Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer does not identify victims of sexual assault.
“Only recently, after being ignored by the church, did she feel strong enough to file suit,” he said.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to the church for comment.
The woman joined the church as a young child in 2008 and sought Mitchell’s spiritual guidance after her father died. Mitchell began paying the girl extra attention during church events, including during lock-ins, the complaint said.
Mitchell sent her text messages that became more and more frequent. Someone brought it to the attention of church leaders and the texting stopped for a time. He eventually started again and began making sexual remarks to her, the complaint said. He also began complaining to her about his marriage.
Mitchell used his position and her vulnerability to coerce her into a sexual relationship, the lawsuit said.
Court records said Mitchell would come to the girl’s house while her mother was at work and sexually abuse her.
“I did not give him permission,” the girl wrote in a letter read aloud during Mitchell’s 2016 sentencing hearing. “I clearly said, ‘No, didn’t want to.’ I felt like he tricked me.”
Even after he was arrested, Mitchell continued to send the girl emails under a false name, according to court records.
The child’s mother, who is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said during the sentencing hearing that church officials told the girl she could not return to the church until she apologized to Mitchell’s wife.
Mitchell, during his sentencing, said that he believed the relationship was consensual and that the two were in love. Judge Peter J. Corrigan, who imposed the 10-year sentence, called that thinking “delusional.”
Mitchell has sought to be released from prison early multiple times, including as recently as February.
In his requests, his lawyers said he has been a model prisoner and included letters from former inmates and a former inmate’s father crediting Mitchell for helping them find religion while behind bars. The lawyers also cited the ailing health of Mitchell’s grandmother and godfather.
The first request that an attorney filed on his behalf in 2021 included a statement from Mitchell in which he called the statements at his sentencing hearing about there being a relationship between the two “foolish thoughts.”
“I was an adult and as an adult should have realized there is no one to blame for the wrong that was done but me,” he wrote. “What happened can not[sic] be called love or even a relationship. It can only be called what it was and that is a series of wrong, hurtful, (manipulative?) decisions.”
Prosecutors responded that it was “ironic” that Mitchell’s request cited his spiritual guidance to inmates behind bars as a reason he should be released from prison. That’s because he used his religious authority to commit the crimes that put him in prison in the first place.
“The defendant should serve each and every day of his 10-year sentence,” Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Kristin Karkutt wrote in a motion filed in response to Mitchell’s latest request.
Corrigan, who denied his two prior requests to shorten his prison stint, denied the latest motion filed on March 20.