Man says secret members in North Carolina Religious group The prosecutor grabbed him and beat him to start his case, accusing the prosecutor of siding with the church that dozens of former congregants said abused them.
Matthew Fenner said in court documents that he waited more than eight years to retry the case A case of kidnapping and assault Word of Faith Fellowship included only District Attorney Ted Bell to schedule the church leader’s second trial during the week Fenner was interviewing for the medical residency. Bell refused to postpone it, Fenner said.
In a sworn statement, Fenner said Bell wants to stay on Word of Faith’s good side because he supports the locally influential church and its hundreds of members in the small county who could remain in his favor in his 2026 re-election bid.
Bell said the allegations about how he handled the case were all false and that he would respond to all of Fenner’s allegations in court.
“I remain committed to performing my duties with integrity, professionalism and an unwavering dedication to justice,” Bell said in a written statement.
Fenner claims Bell stopped speaking to him, refused to interview new witnesses and investigate new evidence, and told him to drop the case.
“If the court does not intervene and remove Bell from this case, the trial will be lost before it even begins. It will not be lost because of a fair determination of the merits; it will be lost because of DA Bell’s actions that created that outcome,” Fenner’s attorney wrote in court papers.
Word of Faith leader Brooke Covington was scheduled to stand trial this week on charges of second-degree kidnapping and simple assault, but that was postponed to consider Fenner’s request. Covington Previous trial With the same counts ending in a Mistrial After the jury foreman introduced his own research into the deliberations. Covington has maintained that she is innocent.
Fenner joined Word of Faith as a teenager in 2010 with his mother. He was at a service at the church’s congregation in Spindale, North Carolina, when members, including Covington, began what the church called a “bombing” session on him, according to Fenner. Members She grabbed him, choked him, and beat him For two hours while others prayed to cast out “gay demons,” Fenner said.
The judge in the 2017 trial wanted to retry the case within months. The initial delay was because the lawyer had health problems. The court record does not provide information about other delays. Other documents in the court file relate to efforts to move the case from the small rural Rutherford County where Word of Faith is headquartered to the more populous urban Buncombe and Asheville counties.
The judge issued a gag order on Fenner, Covington, attorneys and potential witnesses.
Fenner claims in his sworn statement that the prosecutor did not oppose the gag order because he wanted to weaken the case and pressure Fenner to surrender.
Covington’s attorney had no comment on the delay or Fenner’s allegations.
Word of Faith is a non-denominational Protestant church founded in 1979 by Sam and Jane Willey in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlotte and Asheville. Members consider Gene Whaley a prophet.
In 2017, the Associated Press published a series of stories about… Word of faith Which detailed allegations of abuse by former church members. The Associated Press spoke with dozens of former worshipers All over the worldShe listened to hours of secretly recorded conversations with church leaders, and reviewed hundreds of pages of law enforcement, court and child welfare documents.
The AP reported that the church took control Almost every aspect of its members’ lives including who they married, what subjects they studied at school and whether they could go to college. Members were regularly slapped, choked and thrown to the ground while the decibel levels were high Collective prayer.
An AP investigation found that the church and hundreds of its followers control law enforcement Social servicesto forbid Fair investigations
Willey denied that she or other church leaders abused Word of Faith members. She also said any discipline would be protected under the Constitution’s principle of freedom of religion.
The church said the allegations made to the AP were false and were made by “some former members” to target the church and that it does not condone abuse.