Jury awards $6 million to Missouri woman


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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. ? A jury has awarded $6 million to a former choir director who claimed the Methodist Church did not protect her from a pastor she accused of raping her seven years ago.

Jurors ordered the West Missouri Conference of the United Methodist Church to pay Teresa Norris $4 million in punitive damages and $2 million in compensatory damages. "I'm really grateful to the jurors for listening to this whole thing and really making a statement to the conference that things need to change," Norris said after the jury announced its punitive judgment Wednesday. Norris' attorney, Michael Fletcher, had asked the jury to "send a message" with the award, saying the conference failed to take adequate measures after several people filed complaints against the Rev. David Finestead, who served as pastor of Campbell United Methodist Church from 1995-1998. Norris testified that Finestead raped her in her office at Campbell United on March 25, 1998, when she was the church's director of music ministry.

Finestead has never been charged with a crime. A spokesman for the conference, Steve Cox, said Finestead maintains his innocence and noted that Norris did not file a police report.

A separate civil lawsuit has been filed against Finestead, who has left the denomination and now works as a pastor at First Baptist Church in Louisburg, Kan.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/...ch-lawsuit.html

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if you were raped why wouldn't you file a police report? embarrasment? obviously not if you take it to court. and why wait 7 years after the fact...

although if she actually got raped shame on the church :no:

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