Body Camera Proves 2017 Injunction Was Slanderous and False
Before I discuss the injunction hearings on 01/30/20 and 02/10/20, I thought we should look at how we got to this point. In the beginning of 2014, I was a deacon, and I was at the church for as much as twelve hours on Sunday. I would start out serving in a special needs Sunday school class, playing the guitar or piano. Then I would go to the Men's Choir rehersal before I went to the morning service. After that, I might have a benevolence committee meeting, followed my a mixed choir reherasal, and finally the evening service.
02/02/14 was the last service for the music director who had been serving for seventeen years. It included exceptional music featuring the concert master of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and they received a standing ovation from the congregation. You will notice that this date is missing from the vimeo files. There was also a reception in his honor. These things infuriated his victims.
On 03/16/14, there was a congregational meeting regarding the departure of the music minister's good friend, pastor Marion Clark, which they said had nothing to do with the music minister leaving. This lie, on top of the lie that the music minister was leaving to pursue new opportunities, when in reality he had been fired, prompted me to speak out at the congregational meeting, after Liam Goligher asked if there were any questions or comments. This forced the elders to have another congregational meeting on 03/30/14, where they started telling the congregation the truth regarding the music minister. You may recall that Liam Goligher admitted that the elders lied to the congregation regarding this in the injunction transcript, which we will get to shortly.
Of course, the elders were not happy with me and threatened to excommunicate me. They did not do so yet, but the did depose me from being a deacon in 08/14. I offered to voluntarily resign, but they would not allow me to do so.
Meanwhile, the music minister filed a lawsuit against the church, which consumed the elder's attention for the next couple of years. During the lull in my conflict with the elders, I even sang a solo on 07/12/15 from 00:00-10:25 and 25:30-28:52. Here it is below.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XpsJfHViyy8XPAZ717k36SO8YKa__zEB/view?usp=sharing
Here are the program notes.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19qbYNrTCJpPtqoeO33oao3dTVgI8kEh_/view?usp=sharing
Also during this time, I continued to express my concerns to the leaders, who grew tired of my complaints and finally started repeatedly saying that they had discussed the matter and considered it closed. The last straw for me was when deacon Steve Forde refused to meet with me to discuss my concerns about his promotion to elder. This was unfortunate, since Steve and I had served on the benevolence committee together and he had taught my children in Sunday school. I sent out my first letter to the congregation on 01/18/16. The elders responded by calling it a "horrible slander" and "utterly false" in an email to the congregation on 01/21/16. They subsequently retracted these statements and apologized, in an email to the congregation on 02/14/16. See Exhibits 1-3 in my affidavit, beginning on page 20.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzbfeNlz_Uq4bno1SXVHR3QzVzlCYU1mVEJxY1NYOXlldkNN/view?usp=sharing
Things quieted down for a while, but I became aware that the elders were spinning the truth and attacking me, saying I was mentally ill and delusional. So I sent out another letter in 07/16, to which the elders responded by denying that they had ever threatened to excommunicate me or sue me. The elders did exommuincate me on 10/23/16 and subsequently have sued me. Liam Goligher also threatened to arrest me if I came within 1,000 feet of the church, when he served me with the no trespass notice. That, and the fact that they served me with these things at the church, against the advice of their own lawyer, and had me and my wife and minor children leave the church in the presence of a police officer, prompted me to file a defamation lawsuit against them.
I continued sending letters to the congregation. One in particular upset them, since I mentioned a pastor acting inappropriately toward a female employee. I was referring to a different incident, but what I did not know at the time was that an elder/administrator had sexually harassed a female employee, which led to his termination in/around 01/18. So they sent my lawyer a letter threatening to sue me if I said anything more. I responded by going down to the church on 09/10/17. They then filed a preliminary injunction against me. A hearing was held on 10/10/17, and my lawyer gave the judge a flash drive containing body cam footage of the day in question, 09/10/17, which proved that their accusation that I was threatening and harassing people was false.
Here is the body cam footage.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/178W9wM6al9OrW5teDr7mxXUfx4SICXNy/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fIr3m9gvmY5yTrly8vSRo7DmmUOgY18N/view?usp=sharing
Here is the injunction from 2017.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzbfeNlz_Uq4Qmt6MlRkT050dWpFOERYXzVUQ19yMmYzYnp3/view?usp=sharing
Here are my notes on the injunction transcript from 2017.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10jLDBYg_aIsIINPu-jecOh2SFVmZ9MqmjDxBM1Q_Ig0/edit?usp=sharing
Here is supplemental evidence to the notes on the injunction transcript from 2017.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzbfeNlz_Uq4MWtaYnZtU05lOHZyZlRkanlyZktJOGMyZGdJ/view?usp=sharing
Here is the injunction transcript from 2017.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzbfeNlz_Uq4dTlHWERBSjlRbXpNUEdxa01ieGE1dThhYkdJ/view?usp=sharing
In the fall of 2018, the church was attempting to have my defamation lawsuit thrown out, thanks to my lawyer's failure to do any discovery whatsoever, so I went down to the church on 11/25/18 to let them know that regardless of the outcome ot the defamation lawsuit, I was not going anywhere. Their lawyer responded by threatening me with every threat he could think of, including another injunction. Here is his letter as well as the picture taken by Liam Goligher.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzbfeNlz_Uq4ODVvaUx6bDZpbWFJQXZjS3dqbkZmS2ZGZnJv/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzbfeNlz_Uq4YUx5LWotS1lwd3M0MXNZTDB0aUVNc3RXandR/view?usp=sharing
Since they had threatened me with an injunction, I knew that they were going to attempt to do so again, and that they would lie to the judge just like they did the last time. Therefore, I went down to the police station on 02/03/19 to talk to them, in particular about hiring a police officer to protect me from the lies of the church. I discuss this at the end of the first clip and the beginning of the second.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NA8YhCyN-MlBukK6olCV861-1jsCxt7_/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mUg8IQlDKuEhjCL1j702GfklgHbuuH_9/view?usp=sharing
Now that the foundation has been laid, we are ready to discuss the injunction hearings on 01/30/20 and 02/10/20 in the next post. Note that my body camera proved that the injunction attempt in 2017 was slanderous and false and that I did not threaten or harass anyone as claimed.
Feel free to contact me at versaphil1@gmail.com if you have any questions.
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