Former Hillsong Dallas Pastor Reed Bogard resigned after he was accused of rape, investigation reveals By Leonardo Blair, Senior Features Reporter for The Christian Post
GNN Note – Apostasy is real. / END
Less than two weeks after Reed Bogard abruptly resigned as lead pastor of the now-defunct Hillsong Dallas in January 2021, an internal investigation commissioned by Hillsong Global showed that the married father of three was accused of rape by a junior female staffer with whom he had a monthlong affair while serving at Hillsong NYC years earlier.
The former junior Hillsong NYC staffer who asked not to be publicly named in this report when contacted by The Christian Post, said she has been trying to move on with her life. She confirmed she participated in a deposition concerning the allegation but would not say anything more than what was already included in the report.
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“I think at this stage … I’m not going to comment. Everything that you have in that deposition is obviously something that I did, and I said in the context of a legal deposition. I think I just want to leave it at that.”
The findings of the investigation conducted by the New York City law firm Zukerman Gore Brandeis & Crossman, LLP, are highlighted in a report reviewed by CP. The investigation was commissioned by Hillsong Global in October 2020, shortly after senior church officials first learned that the former junior staffer alleged that her first act of sexual intercourse with Bogard in his car after a late night out together was non-consensual.
Hillsong leaders were made aware years earlier of a sexual relationship between the two parties, but an investigation was not conducted by the church at the time. Church leaders were led to believe the relationship was consensual and “consequences to both [parties] were meted out accordingly,” investigators revealed.
The report was submitted to George Aghajanian, general manager and a director of Hillsong Church Australia and its international entities, on Jan. 11, 2021.
