Adam Hamilton's church accused of protecting child molester 2 decades ago

The U.S. Senate campaign of United Methodist megachurch Pastor Adam Hamilton is again facing questions about how he handled reported sexual abuse by a volunteer at a church youth camp two decades ago, which is now featured in a seven-figure ad buy from his GOP opponent. 

The allegations — which resurfaced during Hamilton’s Democratic primary campaign for Kansas’ U.S. Senate seat — date back to 2005, when a camp leader at Hamilton’s Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, reportedly molested two teenage boys at a church youth camp.

Hamilton, the church’s founder and lead pastor, kept Scott Moore on as a church volunteer even after Moore was accused of child molestation in 2005 and 2006, according to the campaign attack ad from Hamilton’s opponent, Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan.

“What did Hamilton do when victims reported him to church leaders? Parents were ignored, and Hamilton never called the police,” the ad’s narrator says. “The next fall, Hamilton welcomed him back. Free to lurk for new victims, later convicted of more child sex crimes.”

“Adam Hamilton protected a pedophile,” the narrator says, before concluding, “He should never be our senator.”

In a statement to The Christian Post, Hamilton campaign spokesman Tyson Brody called the Marshall campaign's ad "a shameful attack."

“This is a desperate and shameful attack from a losing politician on his own state’s largest church," Brody said in a statement. "These smears from Roger Marshall were already examined in the primary by local reporters who found the church reported the incidents to law enforcement, and Adam later personally worked to help get this predator convicted.”

The video, part of a reported $1.2 million ad buy by the Marshall campaign, refers to allegations that first surfaced in local Kansas media in May, when Democratic state Sen. Patrick Schmidt accused Hamilton of a cover-up and called on him to drop out of the race.

Both teenagers said they told church leadership the day after the 2005 incident about what happened with Moore but were accused of “slander” by a youth minister, according to trial testimony reviewed by The New York Post. 

“Essentially he told us that we were trying to slander Scott’s name and trying to make him look bad, and basically told us that we were messing with his life, and there could be serious repercussions for that,” the first victim was quoted as saying. “And besides that, he really didn’t take any action to look into this further.”

Two church employees reportedly investigated the matter but couldn't definitively prove that Moore was at fault for the alleged molestations. Moore was allowed to return as a counselor to the church in late 2006 even though the children's parents were not told about the results of the church's investigation.  

After returning as a camp leader in 2006, court documents say that Moore again entered teenage boys’ rooms. This prompted the church to report Moore to local law enforcement, but prosecutors declined to pursue charges, The Kansas Reflector reported. 

Brody told the newspaper in May that the church began updating its volunteer and staff policies after the 2005 allegation. Moore passed the church's criminal background check at the time. 

“In 2006, when students reported another allegation, the church called law enforcement, and Adam was personally in contact with them,” Brody was quoted as saying, adding that Moore was then banned from having a role with the church. The church also notified the regional UMC conference and Boy Scouts of America, where Moore also volunteered.

Moore was convicted in 2013 of a misdemeanor for inappropriately touching a 16-year-old boy during a sleepover at his home in 2010. The earlier youth camp allegations were used as evidence during that trial. 

Moore also faced a similar charge in Massachusetts in 2011 but was not convicted. In 2015, Moore was found half-naked in a car with a teenage boy shortly before his death. 

Hamilton has denied any cover-up. But he told The Kansas Reflector in July that he would have “absolutely” handled the 2005 incident differently by notifying law enforcement directly. The outlet reports that the church went directly to police in 2006. 

In 2010, a former Kansas resident visited Hamilton after learning of Moore’s alleged abuse and said Moore had sexually abused him as a young child in 1979, according to court documents cited by The Kansas Reflector. Although the statute of limitations — the legal deadline for filing charges — had expired, Hamilton reportedly encouraged the man, whose name has not been released, to report the allegations to law enforcement.

On Monday, the Hamilton campaign posted a video ad response on social media defending how he handled the allegations. The ad's narrator says the church “conducted an internal investigation” and “reported to law enforcement.”

The church later “cut ties” with Moore, according to the video, which accused Marshall of “lying about [Hamilton] to cover up his own record” and cited Marshall’s vote to block the full release of the Epstein files, government records related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Brody accused Marshall of "resorting to these desperate lies and false attacks."

“Roger Marshall is desperate to hide from his record of protecting predators and preying on low-income families in Kansas," Brody told CP. 

With nearly a month to go before Election Day, polls show Hamilton and Marshall in a virtual dead heat, even as Republicans reportedly plan to shift $8 million in campaign spending from North Carolina to the Kansas race.

In his statement to CP, Brody repeated a Hamilton campaign ad's contested claim that in 2011, Marshall, an OB-GYN, had a woman who was eight months pregnant “arrested” for missing a $50 payment to him. The Hamilton campaign says she was one of more than 700 patients Marshall sued while practicing as a physician.

Last month, Marshall's attorneys sent Hamilton’s campaign a cease-and-desist letter over the Hamilton ad making that claim, which they called defamatory.

“The unmistakable message to a reasonable viewer is that Senator Marshall caused a pregnant patient to be arrested and jailed for missing a single $50 payment. That message is false in every material respect,” the letter reads.