3 minutes read time.
A horrific story of long-term sexual abuse and child trafficking has emerged from a Romanian shelter, with explosive lawsuits now implicating one of Southern California’s most prominent evangelical leaders, Pastor Greg Laurie, and his Harvest Christian Fellowship megachurch. Two Romanian men have filed federal lawsuits alleging that a former Harvest pastor, Paul Havsgaard, subjected them and dozens of other children to years of sadistic abuse in a Bucharest shelter, an operation they claim was directly funded and then covered up by Laurie’s church.
The lawsuits, filed by 33-year-old Marian Barbu and 40-year-old Mihai-Constantin Petcu, describe a house of horrors that operated from 2000 to 2008. They allege that Havsgaard, a missionary sent and supported by Harvest, lured vulnerable street children into his care with promises of food and education, only to trap them in what Barbu’s complaint describes as “a torture chamber inside a prison.” The detailed allegations include repeated sexual assault, being forced to kneel on walnut shells as punishment, being tied to radiators, and being “pimped out” by Havsgaard for sex work on video chat and at bathhouses, with the pastor taking a cut of the earnings.
Throughout the abuse, Havsgaard allegedly invoked divine authority, telling the children, “I know what God wants; what I want, God wants.”
The lawsuit alleges that this reign of terror was not only known to Harvest Christian Fellowship but was enabled by its direct financial support and subsequent cover-up. The complaint states that despite receiving “repeated red flags and reports from donors, visitors and others that they suspected sexual abuse,” Pastor Greg Laurie and his church leaders took no action. Instead, they deposited $17,000 each month directly into Havsgaard’s personal bank account, giving him a steady stream of unsupervised funds to continue his operation. Havsgaard even returned to California with some of his victims to help raise more money for the church.
Harvest Christian Fellowship has responded to the allegations with a scorched-earth defense, labeling the lawsuit “financial extortion” and “plainly slanderous.” In a statement, the church sought to distance itself from Havsgaard, describing him as a “former staff person” and claiming the suit “wrongly targets Harvest Riverside and our pastor.” However, when pressed by a reporter from the Southern California News Group, the church’s public relations firm would not clarify if Harvest was paying Havsgaard during the time of the alleged abuse.
The lawsuit directly addresses why it has taken over a decade for these allegations to come to light, citing “extraordinary threats and coercion” used by Havsgaard to silence the children. The complaint states the victims were further impeded by the “extraordinary mental and emotional damage” they suffered, their functional illiteracy, and the “disappearance of Havsgaard and Harvest back to California after 2008, leaving no evident route of redress.”
Jef McAllister, the attorney representing the men, says he expects to file lawsuits on behalf of at least 20 other victims in the coming weeks. He described the survivors as men still suffering from PTSD, trust issues, and poverty. “They’ve had a hard slog,” McAllister said. “They would really like to get some sense that they’ve been heard and that the injustices they’ve suffered are recognized.”
What should bother everyone is that this type of cruelty continues to exist throughout evangelical Christian churches. This is no longer a “new” problem that we’re just starting to talk about. This is a horrible, unforgivable lingering stain on all of religion. It’s time we took the steps to eradicate the issue.
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