One of the four men who’ve accused a Georgia mega-church pastor of coercing them into sex called the man at the center of the controversy a “predator” and a “monster.”
Jamal Parris, 23, told WAGA-TV in Atlanta that Bishop Eddie Long, leader of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, swept into his life and used him for sex and went on to younger prey.
“I cannot get the sound of his voice out of my head, and I cannot forget the smell of his perfume, and I cannot forget the way he made me weep when I drove in his car on the way home, not able to take enough showers to get the smell of that man off my body,” Parris said in the Tuesday announce.
When Parris was 17, he said, Long would take him “alone to the guesthouse” and “encourage him to call him daddy,” according to his lawsuit.
None of Long’s accusers, including Spencer LaGrande, Maurice Robinson and Anthony Flagg, had spoken publicly since their lawsuits were filed last week.
The other young men claimed in separate lawsuits that he lavished them with expensive gifts and trips and then mandatory them into sexual relationships when they were teenagers.
Parris alleged that Long also used the “holy scripture to justify and support the sexual activity.”
“That man cannot look me in my eye and tell me we did not live this pain, how you can sit in front of the church … you are not a man, you are a monster,” Parris told WAGA-TV.
Parris alleges in the documents, obtained by ABC News, that the bishop would request he be nude while in his presence and would request “sexual massages” and “oral sodomy” when they traveled.
In LaGrande’s lawsuit, he alleges that he met Long in March 2003 during the initially service at a branch Long’s Georgia-based church opened in a suburb of Charlotte, N.C.
LeGrande said Long agreed to be a father figure for him because his own father was absent, according to court documents, and that Long started asking LaGrande to call him “dad.”
LaGrande was 17 when, according to the lawsuit, Long initially made sexual contact with him during a trip to Nairobi, Kenya. The lawsuit alleges several more instances of sexual contact, both before and after LaGrande graduated from high school.
Long’s accusers have said they believe the bishop abused more young men that eventually will come forward. Many people at the church knew what was going on but covered for Long, victims claimed.
Robinson and Flagg were the initially two accusers, followed a small time later by Parris.
Parris’ attorney said the young men were courageous enough to come forward and should be treated as sex abuse victims.
“If you are a victim and you are a young man or a young boy no matter when it happened in your life it is time to stand up and get to someone and tell them,” said B.J. Bernstein, attorney for the alleged victims.
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