This article is part of “Pastors and Prey,” a series investigating sex abuse allegations in the Assemblies of God.
A Texas judge is cracking down on the Assemblies of God for repeatedly failing to turn over documents as part of a lawsuit accusing the Pentecostal denomination of mishandling sex abuse allegations.
At a hearing last month, District Court Judge Lauren Reeder, based in Houston, said the denomination’s national office had been “flagrant” in its failure to comply with her orders to produce records related to alleged abuses by Daniel Savala, a convicted sex offender and former missionary. Pastors in the Assemblies of God’s college ministry, Chi Alpha, hailed Savala for years as “the holiest man alive” and sent hundreds of teens and young adults to his home for spiritual guidance, including after he was convicted of child sex abuse.
Reeder told lawyers representing the Assemblies of God on Aug. 11 she would order the denomination to pay some of the legal fees of two former Chi Alpha members who sued over alleged abuses by Savala. Reeder also threatened additional sanctions — including holding the church in civil or criminal contempt of court — if it failed to comply with her orders to produce reports, investigations, personnel files and other documents.
“You don’t get to just decide when to start engaging in the discovery process,” Reeder told lawyers representing the church, according to a transcript.
Assemblies of God officials declined to comment on pending litigation. John Sullivan, a Texas lawyer representing the denomination, acknowledged while under oath and being questioned in court that his client had not fully complied with the court’s orders to produce documents, according to the court transcript. Sullivan testified that his client had been hoping to avoid the expense of going through the court’s “incredibly broad request for production.”
The judge’s rebuke comes as the Assemblies of God — which has nearly 3 million members across 13,000 churches in the United States — faces criticism from abuse survivors and whistleblowers over its refusal to release internal investigations into the church’s handling of sex abuse allegations against Savala. These advocates have called on the Assemblies of God to commission an independent review of its handling of sex abuse allegations nationwide to ensure vulnerable church members are protected in the future.
In signed statements, lawsuits and criminal filings, at least 10 men and boys have accused Savala of sexually abusing them, many at his Houston home and in his backyard sauna. An NBC News investigation revealed last month that senior Assemblies of God officials were warned repeatedly about the danger Savala posed but failed to cut off his influence, allowing more teens and young men to be abused.
Two of Savala’s accusers, identified in court documents as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, sued the Assemblies of God last year in Houston, alleging that church leaders were negligent in allowing Savala to work with students. In November, Reeder ordered the Assemblies of God to produce documents related to allegations of Savala’s misconduct. But nearly 10 months later, the denomination has still failed to do so, court records show.
Anjali Nigam, the lawyer for John Does 1 and 2, said the Assemblies of God’s failure to produce documents fits a pattern of denomination leaders stating publicly that they are doing all they can to help Savala’s alleged victims while withholding information from her clients in court.
“They say to the public they’re letting the facts shine,” Nigam said in an interview with NBC News. “In the lawsuit, what they are doing is keeping it in the dark by not producing documents and information the court has ordered them to produce.”
Dozens of boys and young men have described how Savala, 69, used scripture to convince them to strip naked in his sauna. Visiting his Houston home became a rite of passage for generations of Chi Alpha students in Texas — even after he pleaded guilty in 2012 to sexually abusing two boys in Alaska in the 1990s. Over the decade that followed, state and national Assemblies of God leaders were warned repeatedly about Savala’s presence at Chi Alpha events, according to interviews and emails obtained by NBC News. But Chi Alpha pastors continued to bring students to him for spiritual guidance.
The former Chi Alpha student identified in the lawsuit as John Doe 2 was one of them. He says Assemblies of God pastors sent him and other students on mission trips to Savala’s house to do home repairs for the man they called “Papa Daniel.” Savala sexually abused him for two years starting in 2013, according to the lawsuit.
John Doe 1, a blind student who joined Chi Alpha hoping to find purpose and friendship, says Savala groomed and sexually abused him from 2017 to 2022. This included coercing the student to have oral and anal sex with Savala, according to the lawsuit.
Savala’s alleged abuses became public in 2023 after survivors spoke out on an online forum created by whistleblowers. He was charged with sexually abusing four boys since 2005, all of whom he met through pastors connected to Chi Alpha. Savala has yet to enter a plea on the charges, and he and his lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Assemblies of God officials addressed the controversy at their biennial meeting last month, pledging to take steps to prevent anything like it from happening again. “We’re committed to identifying within our system, within our structures, what’s broken, what can be fixed to prevent these kinds of things,” said Doug Clay, the denomination’s general superintendent.
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Donna Barrett, the denomination’s general secretary, defended the denomination’s refusal to release the findings of an internal investigation by a law firm, because, she said, doing so would violate the privacy of victims and deter others from coming forward.
Nigam said Barrett’s comments, which were reported by NBC News, were the first she’d heard about an internal investigation by the Assemblies of God’s national office.
“I do not have that document,” Nigam said. “Those documents should have been provided in this litigation, and they have not been.”
Reeder, the judge, is expected to decide at a future hearing how much the Assemblies of God will be ordered to pay in legal fees and whether she will impose any additional sanctions. In legal briefs filed last week, Nigam asked the judge to award $57,000 in legal fees and requested that she further punish the Assemblies of God by instructing jurors at trial that they can infer from the denomination’s failure to produce documents that the church knew Savala was a sex predator and “did nothing to stop or warn children and young men from being sent” to him.
The Assemblies of God has said it “took appropriate actions” once it received reports of sexual abuse by Savala.
At the next scheduled hearing on Sept. 29, Reeder will consider whether to impose sanctions against the Assemblies of God district council that oversees the church’s affairs in South Texas, which also has failed to comply with orders to produce documents related to Savala, court records show.
Lawyers representing the Assemblies of God South Texas District Council didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Nigam said she hopes the court’s moves force the denomination to reveal what state and national officials did — or failed to do — in response to allegations about Savala.
“My clients have been wanting to have the truth come out, and that is a real driving force in why they filed this lawsuit,” Nigam said. “You can’t conceal facts. That’s not permitted.”
