Six Mistakes That Turned A Good Intention Into Criminal Charges and Civil Lawsuits

Georgetown County, South Carolina prosecutors have charged three former Pawleys Island employees, including its former pastor, with obstruction of justice and conspiracy.  Sheriff Carter Weaver said an “abundance of evidence” showed the three placed children at risk by concealing a volunteer’s status as a convicted sex offender. In addition, four plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against the church, the school, and its leaders. 

No court has convicted any of the four defendants. The facts below come from the sheriff’s press conference, the church’s own public statements, and the complaints filed in court. Even as allegations, they lay out a sequence of decisions that any youth-serving organization should study.

Protecting an Offender’s Dignity Is Not the Same as Protecting Children

A court convicted the volunteer in 2023 of sexual exploitation of a minor. He then served as a campus custodian at the church. That church shares a location with the church-run Christian school. The former pastor told his congregation before resigning that he and several church leaders knew about the volunteer’s sex offender status. They chose not to tell parents or teachers. The pastor said leaders wanted to treat the volunteer “with dignity” as someone “made in the image of God.”

That instinct is not wrong on its own. Every YSO will eventually face a situation involving a person with a criminal history who wants a second chance. The mistake is treating compassion for that person as a substitute for a documented, verified child safety plan.

Concealing a volunteer’s sex offender status from the staff and parents supervising him does not protect his dignity. It removes the only people positioned to protect the children.

A Verbal Promise From an Offender Is Not a Safeguard

The former pastor said church leaders trusted the volunteer’s promises. He claimed he was complying with his probation terms, which barred contact with minors. When his probation officer confronted him, by contrast, the volunteer admitted he had violated that condition.

Church leaders had no independent way to know that. An outside agency caught the violation instead.

A safety plan built on an offender’s self-report is not a safety plan. If your organization allows a person with this kind of history into any role, verification cannot depend on that person telling the truth. Verification requires three things: a written agreement, a named staff member responsible for monitoring compliance, and periodic contact with probation or parole authorities. A one-time assurance is not enough.

A Policy No One Monitors Protects No One

The pastor also told the congregation that leaders had implemented safeguards. Leaders said those safeguards kept the volunteer from ever being alone with a child. Parents disputed that claim directly, both at the meeting and to reporters. They said their children had frequent, sometimes unsupervised, contact with that volunteer.

A sheriff’s office incident report says the volunteer was on campus seven days a week. A subsequent lawsuit alleges children knew him by name. They interacted with him during everyday activities, including watering flowers, playing frisbee, and celebrating his birthday on campus.

A policy that exists only on paper is worse than no policy at all. It gives leadership a false sense of security when nobody audits it. If your organization has a two-adult rule or any other supervision safeguard tied to a specific individual, someone needs to verify regularly that staff actually follow the rule on the ground. Daily, unsupervised, personal contact like the kind these lawsuits allege is exactly what a real monitoring system should catch.

Calling Someone a “Volunteer” Doesn’t Exempt You From an Employee’s Screening Requirements

A fourth lawsuit makes a different argument. It claims the volunteer actually functioned as an employee at the school. South Carolina law bars a registered sex offender from working at a licensed childcare facility.

According to the complaint, the volunteer held his own keys to the building. He performed recurring custodial duties and had daily access to classrooms while children were present. Church and school leadership directed and controlled his work as well.

The complaint also alleges that the school never ran the background, fingerprint, sex offender registry, and child abuse registry checks state law requires for licensed childcare workers. State law requires organizations to repeat these checks every five years.

The label your organization puts on a role does not control the legal obligations attached to it. Suppose a person has keys to your building, shows up on a recurring schedule, and has access to children during the day. Calling that person a “volunteer” instead of an “employee” will not exempt your organization from the screening and licensing requirements the work actually requires.

Review every recurring role on your campus, including paid staff and unpaid volunteers.  Ask honestly whether the label matches the reality of daily contact with children.

Ignoring a Parent’s Disclosure Is a Failure to Report

Near the end of the church meeting, a mother spoke up. Her child had been molested, she said, and she had reported it to the pastor. She alleged the pastor ignored the claim.

A separate lawsuit filed this week includes a similar allegation. It claims the volunteer sexually abused a child at the school.

If these accounts hold up, they describe the single most serious failure in this story. A concealment decision about an offender’s status is a governance failure. Ignoring a parent’s direct disclosure of abuse is a failure to report. It is also the failure most likely to cause direct harm to a specific child.

Every person in a YSO needs clear, repeated training. That training must cover what to do the moment a parent or child discloses abuse. Report immediately to a supervisor (if state law allows it) and then both report together to the appropriate authority. Document what you reported.  Never make an internal judgment call about whether the disclosure sounds credible enough to escalate.

Fixing Your Policy After You Get Caught Is Not Leadership

The former pastor promised the congregation that the church would require background checks for all volunteers going forward. Previously, the church only checked volunteers who worked directly with children. That is a sound policy change.

But the change came only after a concerned citizen alerted the sheriff and an outside investigation forced the church’s hand. It also fails to address a separate allegation: that the church skipped the licensed-childcare-facility checks state law required for the custodian’s role all along.

Review your screening and supervision policies before an outside authority forces you to. Does your current practice only check people who work directly with children? If so, ask why a custodian, a facilities volunteer, or any other person with regular campus access is exempt. Confirm which roles legally require licensed-facility-level screening rather than your organization’s own internal standard.

The Bottom Line

One concealed fact drove this entire story: a volunteer was a convicted sex offender. That fact generated criminal defendants, civil lawsuits, an executed search warrant, and the resignation of an entire leadership team. Take these steps now, before your organization faces its own version of this story:

• Screen every person with recurring campus access at the level their actual role requires, not the level their job title implies.
• Never rely solely on an offender’s self-report to verify compliance with legal restrictions.
• Audit supervision safeguards regularly instead of assuming staff are following a written policy.
• Confirm which roles on your campus legally require licensed-facility-level background, fingerprint, and registry checks, and repeat them on the schedule the law requires.
• Train every staff member to report a disclosure of abuse immediately, without making an internal judgment about credibility.

Watch for gaps in your policy that could put your organization in the spotlight and a lawyer’s crosshairs.