California pastor accused of sexual abuse, child trafficking at Bucharest shelter

A former pastor from California has been accused of sexual abuse and child trafficking at a shelter he ran in Bucharest, according to lawsuits filed by two Romanian men in the California District Court, AP reported.

The complaints, filed by 33-year-old Marian Barbu and 40-year-old Mihai-Constantin Petcu, reportedly say that former pastor and missionary of Harvest Christian Fellowship, Paul Havsgaard, severely abused them and dozens of other children at the shelter over the course of eight years.

The two men say Havsgaard lured street children with food and the promise of shelter and education. As a result, the men are “injured, angry and still suffering from PTSD and difficulties with social integration,” said Jef McAllister, a London lawyer from the law firm representing Barbu and Petcu.

McAllister said that, in the coming weeks, he expects to file lawsuits involving at least 20 more people who say they were abused at the shelter. “Some of them are still illiterate, even though they lived in these homes where they were supposed to receive an education,” he said.

In his complaint, Marian Barbu reportedly says that life at the shelter was like “a torture chamber inside a prison” and that Havsgaard regularly appeared in the bathroom while the boys were showering or undressing, staring at them or pleasuring himself. Both plaintiffs also accused Havsgaard of forcing older boys to have sex via video chat or in baths and of taking a share of their earnings.

The complaints detail sexual assaults, inappropriate touching, and abuses in which children were forced to kneel on walnut shells or were tied to beds or radiators.

Harvest Christian Fellowship, the church where the pastor served, said in a press release that the allegations in the lawsuit were shocking, but that Havsgaard should be the target, not the church or its famous founding pastor. “This misguided lawsuit wrongly targets Harvest Riverside and our pastor as a form of financial extortion,” the statement said. “It does not seek the truth, nor does it attempt to stop the alleged offender,” the statement added.

Nevertheless, the lawsuits also name the founder and senior pastor of the church, Greg Laurie, a well-known evangelist and author, as well as other senior church leaders, saying that they failed to prevent the abuses.

The lawsuit says that Laurie not only kept Havsgaard in Romania with minimal supervision, but that the church also deposited USD 17,000 every month into Havsgaard’s personal bank account. According to the complaints, the abuse was not stopped despite red flags and reports from donors, visitors, and other people who suspected sexual abuse and who saw poor living conditions at the shelter.