Another piece to the puzzle at Fellowship Memphis. Allegedly Rick Trotter was not just recording in the restroom at Fellowship Memphis but also in his own home. Allegedly Rick was banned from Bryan Loritt’s house but in the end despite knowing the danger that Rick Trotter posed Bryan and the leadership of Fellowship Memphis had no problem with him going on board at Richard Rieves Downtown Church.
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
Benjamin Franklin
“The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.”
James Russell Lowell
But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Matthew 18:6 NLT
When I wrote “The Sordid Tale of Rick Trotter, Bryan Loritts, John Bryson and Acts 29 Fellowship Memphis and Downtown Presbyterian Church” I knew there was much more to the story. This post is going to be brief but this information needs to get out there in the public. When Rick Trotter was caught allegedly filming women and underage females at the Acts 29 Fellowship Memphis restroom , it turned out that was not the only location where he allegedly filmed females and people underage. Allegedly Rick Trotter also set up a camera in his own home. As such he allegedly caught members of the Loritts family. I knew this information but I held back because I didn’t want to re-victimize Bryan’s family. After all in this case they were also the victim of an alleged sex crime. Bryan apparently banned Rick Trotter from his home where Rick was not allowed anymore. There was a falling out that allegedly took place. Despite the fact that members of Bryan’s own family were allegedly filmed Bryan Loritts didn’t report the situation to law enforcement. I find this to be beyond sick. What Bryan did is put the image of Fellowship Memphis and his rising star in the Reformed Industrial Complex ahead of the safety of his family. Even under those situations Bryan would not report the situation to the police. Then there is this element to the story as well. Despite the fact that Bryan knew the entire story, he as a part of Fellowship Memphis did not discourage (and may have encouraged and facilitated) the employment of Rick Trotter his brother-in-law at Richard Rieves Downtown Presbyterian Church where former Fellowship worker Chris Davis was the assistant pastor. Bryan allegedly knew he was a risk, and what he allegedly did to his own family. Yet despite that fact Bryan did not stop Rick Trotter from going on to another church and putting a large number or females and underage children at risk. That is one of the horrors of this entire story. Amy Smith got a statement from Bryan Loritts today which I have in the lead of this post. So here is my question…if you attended Downtown Church how do you feel knowing that a pastor from Fellowship Memphis allegedly kept his brother-in-law out of his house to protect the safety of his family and yet had no problem turning him over to another church and putting you and your loved ones at risk. How does that make you feel? If you are from Memphis you can post below and vent if you would like.
Wondering Eagle 
The Christian Post has an article claiming that John Bryson has hired a private investigator. http://m.christianpost.com/news/ex-acts-29-board-member-john-bryson-hires-private-investigator-after-allegations-he-covered-for-voyeur-pastor-168430/?m=1
This was interesting- “Rick Trotter spent years attending John Bryson’s men’s training called Fight Club” Is this another of these men’s programs that are supposed to develop character?
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Fair Game Law LRH is now underway…
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I said this before but downtown should NEVER have hired this man, and given him access to a church at odd times which staff will inevitably have. Did they give him a key???
Criminal. IMO.
Somebody in another thread said downtown gave him another chance. The church is not supposed to be in the business of giving people another chance to victimize others!!!
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The pastors at Downtown (Presbyterian) Church were well-aware of Rick Trotter’s sexual predatory nature and the massive improbability that he was in any way “cured.” Richard Rieves (the lead pastor) knew. Chris Davis (assistant pastor) had worked for Bryan Loritts (the predator’s brother-in-law and lead pastor at the time at Fellowship Memphis, where Trotter was originally caught committing predatory acts related to his paraphilia on church members).
Downtown (Presbyterian) Church–now, simply known as “Downtown Church”–was a young church plant of the large 2nd Presbyterian church in Memphis. Its leadership (including Sr. Pastor, Sandy Wilson) was well-aware that their church-plant hired a sexual predator and did nothing to stop it.
Rieves and Wilson also had been informed that there were children involved in Trotter’s transgressions and supported a dangerous pervert in their employ, anyway.
Shame on them all!
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I’m curious, how do you know that Rieves and Wilson had been informed that there were children involved? Downtown Church admits to being aware of Trotter’s past when they hired him, but both Fellowship and Downtown Church maintain that no minors were ever involved. Since the story has broken of minors being involved at Fellowship, Downtown Church has been adamant that they were never told this. In light of this, how do you have personal knowledge that Rieves and Wilson did in fact know? It seems very bold of you to make this claim as truth, when in fact you are speculating.
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The under aged issue is really a legal matter more than a moral one to me.
You shovel be every bit as willing to protect adult women as to protect children. Instead the only one protected was trotter.
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The underage issue I view as both a legal and moral matter Lea. That’s how I view it. Both adults and children need to be protected. Just as Seniors and infants need to be protected.
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IT’s all immoral, what I meant was this hyper focus on children verses adults is probably because the legal penalties for recording children are significantly higher. So, of course they want to deny, hide, etc. that aspect of it.
Morally, it’s all terrible. And it’s not ok if it was just adults.
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Presbyterians are not Neo-Calvinists. However Presbyterians do place a heavy emphasis on elders. It just seems to me whenever the elders feel they can “by-pass” its members in making decision, that the elders have the “right” to withhold certain information from its members, things can “potentially” go horribly wrong. This Presbyterian church hiring a known predator, without telling the congregation, is a clear example of this.
So perhaps the problem isn’t totally on Neo-Calvinists. The problem is actually on elder-ship. That the elders are viewed as “wiser” and “knows better” than the rest of the congregation.
Now it is clear that elders do exist in the churches in the bible. So I am not saying at all that elders should be removed from the church system. In fact I will say yes elders should exist. However perhaps it is time for ALL churches to look at their elder system and identify potentials for abuse and GRAVE ERRORS in decision making. Elders are certainly more heavily attacked by Satan. So members really should be careful in trusting the elders too much, when Satan places his heaviest attacks against the elders.
For example the elder-ship might decide to forgive and accept that predator. However it is NOT up to them to make this decision. They should have bring this up to the whole congregation to decide. Let no secret remain hidden during the election and voting process.
Anytime someone feel that they need to HIDE or LIE about something to GAIN or PUSH FORWARD something, most likely the idea is from SATAN.
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@ Questioning.
Bryan Loritts said his own family was filmed by Rick Trotter. As such Bryan is saying here (using the previous statement as prove) that he didn’t cover for Rick.
If that is true (not saying it is), then logic says that the Downtown Presbyterian Church knew about Rick’s predatory ways before they hired Rick. Why? Because Bryan told them about it. Remember in this version of the story, Bryan didn’t cover for Rick.
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I don’t understand why Bryan Loritts didn’t turn in Rick Trotter when Loritts’ family were victims of Trotter. Does the Reformed Industrial Complex matter so much to Loritts that he’s willing to sacrifice his family members to keep his place in it? The whole thing is unbelievable.
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Isn’t it Mirele? Bryan Loritts put his church and publishing ahead of his own flesh and blood. How twisted is that?
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Party First, Comrade.
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I can’t speak for these guys because I have no idea what they were thinking but in the past I have seen some fundamentalist pastors whose own idea of when a girl is “of age” differs from the official one.
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Hello “Questioning”, Do you wonder why they would “maintain that no minors were ever involved”?
Did he turn off the video when children entered?
Abuse against minors bring it to a whole new level!
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Agreed…unless they had separate bathrooms for adults and children hands down Rick Trotter had to capture minors in the restroom. That raises this issue to child pornography in my humble opinion.
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Not defending Fellowship, nor claiming that they are not lying. I was questioning your statement that pastors Rieves and Wilson knew there were children involved… My point is that Fellowship claimed no minors were involved, and I’m sure Rieves and Wilson took them at their word. On this side of things, it’s easy to say they shouldn’t have trusted them. At the time, though, they thought they had all the information. For the record, I totally agree that the morality is equally wrong for children and adults to be filmed… I just take issue with your bold statement that all pastors involved turned a blind eye to child pornography. Not the case.
(Oh, and as for the question whether there were separate bathrooms for adults and children at Fellowship, it is my understanding that the filming took place in the staff office. So it is possible that no children were ever in there. Again, that doesn’t make it any better in my eyes, just clarifying)
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I appreciate your desire to want to protect these guys, who hold positions of esteem. However, there were kids on Trotter’s videos.
Sandy Willson and Richard Rieves knew. I. Told. Them.
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If they had handed over the evidence to the police instead of…not doing that…then we would know for sure., wouldn’t we?
Why don’t you ask questions about that?
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Heather Trotter told me there were kids recorded and that people on staff were upset about it. She was angry at them for making a big deal about it.
There were recordings taken place at multiple locations which the staff and Heather knew about.
All the staff and residents turned a blind eye to child pornography and the sexual exploitation of over 100 women.
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I told them each, myself.
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No further questions
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Curious…do you realize that Rick will probably not serve time for this? It is only a misdemeanor and not a felony. I’d love to see you put your writing to good use and spend time arguing that this should be taken seriously by the justice system.
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So, I assume you are doing everything you can to get the laws changed! Kudos to you!
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Yes. Actually, I am!
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Wow. That’s a pleasant surprise! And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
If you’ll notice, the purpose of Eagle’s blog is to expose abuse (of all kinds) in religious organizations, and that is based on abuse that he has personally experienced.
He has his calling, and you have yours. I think you can both do good things.
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No answer, wondering eagle?
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“”I’d love to see you put your writing to good use and spend time arguing that this should be taken seriously by the justice system.”
Shut down the news sources, it isn’t a good use of their time. Seriously? This smacks of an attempt at silencing. The implication is Eagle should not write about corruption but should only lobby the justice system, this is a faulty premise on several fronts. Changes to the law typically come from public pressure but you appear to be implying the public be kept in the dark. If you are lobbying for a change in the law you should see exposing these types of crimes will aid in that effort. Different people have different roles to play, so please don’t act holier than thou and drop in chastising everyone who is not doing the same things you are.
Warning the public is a valuable service. Unfortunately this type of comment gives people an excuse to remain ignorant of the corruption that may be in their midst.
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>Seriously? This smacks of an attempt at silencing.
Of course it is! What good is a change in the law if the church response is going to be to destroy evidence, lean heavily on the victims to get them to keep things from the police and then quietly shuffle the guy over into another job so he can do it again???
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“I’m curious, how do you know that Rieves and Wilson had been informed that there were children involved? ”
Are you suggesting children never use the restrooms at church? How gullible do you have to be to be defending such leaders?
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Not defending, looking for clarification. Stating that pastors knew about and dismissed a crime of child pornography is a very bold statement to make. Wanted to know how that commentor could be sure that all pastors knew of this. And as I understand it, the filming took place in the staff office, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that no children were involved. I don’t know this as fact, and it’s easy to say on this side of things that the pastors as Downtown Church shouldn’t have been so trusting, but at the time they probably thought they had all information necessary. It’s good to be questioning and challenging this leadership, but making statements as fact that may not be fact is not the best idea.
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>Stating that pastors knew about and dismissed a crime of child pornography is a very bold statement to make.
It sure is. Maybe if they didn’t erase the evidence (allegedly!) then we would know for sure, wouldn’t we?
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When “church leaders” are facing one of the most heinous abuses (child sexual abuse) and they STILL put their own personal interests (and church brand) ahead of the victims in their flock that they are commanded by God to protect and serve, this is the ultimate admission that their selfishness and arrogance disqualifies them from ministry.
Any church employee who 1) fails to call police 2) protects predators or 3) treats victims as less worthy than predators, should never be employed in clergy again. The US has 500,000 pastors and 90 million jobs, so we don’t need to protect their empires, their egos, or their transgressions. Millions of people change careers every year. Get out of ministry.
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Amen!
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