United Pentecostal Pastor Stephen Barker, Raul Rodriguez & A Lawsuit Part 3

This is the 45th installment in this series and a follow up to my first and second articles on this situation. A lawsuit was filed on December 3, 2020 by United Pentecostal Church pastor Stephen Barker against Emily Calderon. She is a former church member, who since 2020 has been very outspoken about multiple cases of alleged sexual abuse involving the late Raul Rodriguez, a long-time and very involved member of Mount Zion Apostolic Church in Visalia (Goshen), California, who was Barker’s brother-in-law. There are at least four different allegations of such behavior against him. The defamation lawsuit is also against twenty unnamed individuals and seeks payment of a half million dollars. This is case VCU285173. A jury trial is scheduled for January 31, 2022.

On Monday, December 20, 2021, Emily will be attending a settlement conference regarding the case. She had to let her attorney go back in October, so she will not have representation at this meeting. My thoughts are that no settlement will be reached as the plaintiffs appear to be pressing forward with the lawsuit unless she retracts her statements and agrees to not communicate about these things in the future, something Emily is not willing to do. (See this video.) I do not know if they would stipulate that she sign an NDA, but I don’t believe that people should sign NDAs in cases like this or anything related to sexual abuse. Emily and her former attorney previously attempted to settle the case with them, but they declined, I assume in part because they did not wish to pay her attorney fees.

I am supplying the original lawsuit in PDF format, as well as the response from Calderon’s former attorney, where she denies their allegations. I purchased these from the court as the documents are available to the public. I believe that people should know more details about the case and the claims made in the original filing and I encourage everyone to read the documents for themselves. I will be sharing two additional documents in my next installment. You will probably find the initial response to the lawsuit hard to follow as the attorney is sharing many legal reasons why it is believed that the lawsuit is not valid. Because of this, I won’t be commenting on it. Let’s take a brief look at what the plaintiffs are claiming.

I shared in the first article that when someone sues for defamation, the burden of proof rests on the person(s) filing the lawsuit. My understanding of this is that they must prove the statements made by Emily are false and that she knew the statements were untrue or made them maliciously, not caring about the veracity or lack thereof. In addition, the statements must be proven to have been made to a third party and that the plaintiffs incurred damages because of them. In the plaintiff’s initial mid September 2020 letter to Calderon, prior to the lawsuit when they asked her to remove her social media posts and cease, the attorney claimed that her posts “have already caused great harm to the Church and the Pastor” and that “we can prove that your defamatory statements are false and misleading.” Take note that in just over a month from when they acknowledge Emily’s posts started, they claimed great harm had occurred. [See screen shot one and two from Emily’s TikTok.]

After a bunch of necessary initial legal statements, at paragraph 9 we start to see the specifics of the lawsuit. Stephen Barker states that his reputation is “critical to his role as leader of Mt. Zion Apostolic Church.” He goes on to say that he is a mandatory reporter and that he “follows all of his legal duties, and holds himself and his colleagues to the highest moral standards.” It is later stated that the church “provides a safe place for members to worship.”

I believe that Barker was made aware of at least some of the sexual abuse allegations against Rodriguez in 2020, if not before. As a mandatory reporter, I believe he would then have the obligation to report the allegations to police, whether or not he believed them, and whether or not Rodriguez admitted to them. It is not up to a pastor to decide the veracity of an accusation before reporting. The question must then be asked, do the police have any instances where Barker reported possible child sexual abuse? To me, because of victim statements, such information would solve the majority of this case. In my opinion, when a minister is made aware of child sexual abuse allegations and does not report it to police, they are helping to cover up the abuse and protect the alleged perpetrator. Often this enables abusers to continue harming others. Ministers are NOT supposed to be handling these ‘in house,’ no matter how good their intentions may be. [I will add that had United Pentecostal pastor Harvey Cantrell reported Meghan Estrada’s allegations to police about 14 years ago, when he was made aware of it, then perhaps none of what is happening now would have occurred. One could then ask another question: Do the police have any instances where a former or present minister at this church reported possible child sexual abuse? I ask this because some who were members of Calvary Gospel Church in Madison, Wisconsin, had been under the impression that their pastor reported. Years later they discovered that the church had never made any reports of child sexual abuse. You will find numerous articles about that church in this blog series.]

Let our readers be reminded that due to the actions of two United Pentecostal Church ministers in California, Arthur Hodges III and George Nobbs, clergy were specifically added to the mandatory reporting law in California. Hodges and Nobbs were arrested in 1988 for failing to report child sexual abuse that was committed by a fellow UPC minister, Lyn Meche. Convicted in 1991, they appealed and it was upheld in 1992. This case is mentioned on pages 130 and 131 in the book, The Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis and the Legal Responses.

In paragraph 15 they claim that Emily Calderon “has felt anger, resentment, and malice toward” them. In the following section they state that around September 4, 2020, she made posts to Facebook that accused Barker and Mt. Zion of “covering up sexual abuse and of protecting a sexual predator.” They claim that at the same time she published a post to a “‘Minister’s Forum’ that was viewed by many of the pastor’s colleagues, members of the Church, and Church leaders.” They do not name this forum, nor the platform on which it is located. My guess is that this may have been an app that Mt. Zion uses for leaders in the church or perhaps a private Facebook group for Mt. Zion leaders. My knowledge of actual minister’s forums that have operated are that only licensed UPCI ministers may join and have access and that Emily would not have been able to gain entry.

They go on to claim that around the following day Emily contacted the UPCI Superintendent. It is my understanding that she did make a comment on David Bernard’s Facebook profile. Bernard has two profiles on that platform, a public figure one and a regular one. A number of people have used Bernard’s profile to mention or ask about what they believe to be wrongdoings in UPCI churches. Since Bernard has others who have access to his profile and are often the ones responding, he may personally have never seen or known about any posting.

Paragraph 19 states that either in late October or early November that Emily posted on Facebook that Ron Barker (who died November 1, 2021) was guilty of committing a sexual act. Ron Barker is one of the parties suing Calderon and is the father of Stephen Barker. In a phone recording made where he was speaking with Emily’s husband, Steven, he can be heard saying that he was going to “sue you guys until you ain’t got nothing left.” It appears to me that he was the main person driving the lawsuit. You can hear his words for yourself here. Due to this and other calls and alleged threats, on November 17, 2020, Steven Calderon filed for civil harassment restraining orders against Ron. This was case VCU285028. It was denied on December 7, 2020.

Paragraph 20 pretty much sums up their claims of defamation in stating that Emily has claimed the following:
1) that Pastor Barker has covered up sexual abuse for a long period
2) that Mt. Zion has covered up sexual abuse for a long period of time
3) that Ron Barker has covered up sexual abuse for a long period
4) that Pastor Barker has protected a sexual predator(s)
5) that Mt. Zion has protected a sexual predator(s)
6) that Ron Barker has protected a sexual predator(s)

They believe that she knew her statements were false, that they were made with malice, and that her “long-term grudge” against them “drives her to defame” them and to “inflict emotional and economic harm.”

For the first cause of action, it is stated that the plaintiffs “suffered, and continue to suffer, professional harm and financial loss” due to Calderon’s statements and that they “have been exposed to ridicule and harm to professional reputation.” In the next paragraph they go on to state that they “suffered, and continue to suffer from shame, mortification, and hurt feelings” due to this. This is repeated in the second cause of action.

In the third cause of action, it is claimed that Calderon knew of their income and operations and that “she sought to disrupt” their “current and future economic relationships.” They go on to state that her actions have resulted in economic harm. It would be interesting to see how the church would show they have suffered financially as a direct result of Emily’s statements. We are in the midst of a pandemic and the income of many ministers and churches has decreased. I find this aspect of the lawsuit interesting, considering that, according to the phone conversation between Ron Barker and Steve Calderon, that Ron Barker wanted to harm them financially through a lawsuit. In addition, the lawsuit is also against 20 unnamed/unknown individuals. It states that they will amend the lawsuit “to allege their true names and capacities when ascertained” and yet over the course of more than a year this has not been done. This also causes me to believe that this was filed with the intent to harm the Calderon family financially, in addition to stopping Emily from speaking out about child sexual abuse.

In the fourth and fifth causes of action, the plaintiffs allege they have “suffered significant emotional harm…including anxiety, loss of sleep, and reduced health.” It will be interesting to see the medical bills to support this claim. They go on to request damages in the amount of $500,000 in addition to general, special and punitive damages and their attorney costs and fees. They also desire injunctive relief ordering Calderon to end the alleged harassment and defamation, that all her posts and her agent’s posts be removed, and that she make a “written retraction of all relevant false and defamatory statements.”

Meghan (Estrada) Robles, one of the alleged victims, filed a police report and gave a deposition for this case. Larissa Martinez, another alleged victim, shared in six of Emily’s videos some of what happened to her. I believe she provided a written statement for the lawsuit, as may have other alleged victims. I personally believe the victims and my heart goes out to them. In my opinion, if their reports are true and if no minister at Mt. Zion Apostolic Church ever reported the allegations to police, then I believe no defamation has occurred. As shared above, if a minister fails to report, then I believe they are helping to cover up the abuse (whether or not that is their intention) and such protects the alleged perpetrator and may enable them to continue harming others. In my opinion, if such later becomes public, any emotional or economic harm would be the result of such failure to report.

As a reminder to everyone, in late 2019, the United Pentecostal Church adopted a position paper on abuse and sexual abuse that they expect their ministers to follow.

I want to make clear once again that this lawsuit is a public record, I believe the pastor would be considered a public figure, and as such people are free to discuss this case and the issues involved with it, sharing their thoughts and opinions. In addition, the issue of sexual abuse is unquestionably a very public issue.

Emily has a petition at Change.org that so far has 558 signatures.

December 13, 2021 Note: The plaintiff’s attorney has scheduled an emergency court meeting for December 17, 2021 to request that the settlement conference be rescheduled and to take the trial date off the calendar.

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.