Nine Boys, One Church, $17.61 Million: How a Virginia Congregation's Silence Fueled Years of Abuse

In the summer of 2009, a member of Immanuel Baptist Church in Colonial Heights, Virginia, reported to church leaders that a youth group volunteer had sexually abused a child. The church investigated. Then it put the volunteer back in his position working with young people.

For the next six years, the abuse continued. Jeffrey Dale Clark held access to boys in the church youth program until his arrest in September 2015, when police charged him with two counts of aggravated sexual battery. More victims came forward in the months that followed. Clark eventually pleaded guilty in 2016 to three counts of aggravated sexual battery and two counts of indecent liberties with a child, and received a 25-year prison sentence.

Civil suits followed. Attorneys Kevin Biniazan, Justin Sheldon, and Lauren Martin of Breit Biniazan filed claims on behalf of nine young men against Immanuel Baptist Church, two related church entities, Clark, a former church leader who had held positions at the congregation for decades, and Clark's father. The claims centered on negligent hiring and retention, breach of custodial duties to vulnerable minors, and a civil conspiracy to conceal and enable the abuse. Pre-trial litigation ran through significant defense motions: the court rejected the defendants' plea to throw the case out under the doctrine of ecclesiastical abstention, keeping the claims alive for trial.

Eight insurance carriers were drawn into the proceedings, and the carriers' collective position was that their policies covered only a fraction of the potential exposure. The carriers filed declaratory judgment actions seeking to limit or escape their duty to indemnify the defendants, and Breit Biniazan litigated against those coverage positions over the course of the case. When the cases were set for trial in July 2025, all parties reached agreement to settle all pending claims for $17.61 million, the day before the first trial was scheduled to begin. The settlement amount was roughly four times what the carriers had claimed represented their full combined indemnity obligations.

The resolution closed litigation that had stretched across nearly nine years and multiple rounds of dispositive motions. No reduction has been reported.