World Faith Fellowship Members Indicted on Gay Attack 2013
WSPAMatthew Fenner, a college student, said he thought he was going to die when five members of the Word of Faith Fellowship allegedly assaulted him.Sarah Anderson, Adam Bartley, Brooke Covington, Justin Covington and Robert Walker Jr. face felony charges in connection to kidnapping and assaulting college student Matthew Fenner last year because he was gay. ‘I honestly thought I was going to die,’ Fenner said of the attack.
Five members of a North Carolina church have been indicted for allegedly attacking a man for being gay.
The Word of Faith Fellowship has a dubious history of abuse among its members, but allegations have not resulted in felony charges until this week when a grand jury indicted five people within its Spindale community.
Sarah Anderson, Adam Bartley, Brooke Covington, Justin Covington and Robert Walker Jr. have all been charged in connection to a 2013 attack on Matthew Fenner, according to Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office.
“I honestly thought I was going to die,” Fenner told WSPA-TV while describing the incident. “My head was being flung back, and my vision was going brown and back.”
Full details of Fenner’s account have not been released by authorities, but Fenner claims the abuse nearly killed him.
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This is the first time members of the church have face felony charges for crimes connected to its history of abuse.
Of those charged, Anderson is accused of attempting to strangle Fenner, but her brother does not believe she is capable of such violence.
“I knew it was a lie from the beginning,” Patrick Covington, who is also gay, told WLOS-TV. “She is not capable of what he’s accusing her of doing.”
All five are also charged with kidnapping the then-teen and assaulting him.
Josh Farmer, an attorney representing Word of Faith Fellowship, has denied his clients ever “physically harmed Mr. Fenner,” according to WSPA-TV.
“The church does not target members who are gay,” Farmer wrote in an email to the TV station.
The allegations follow a similar investigation spurred by a 2011 attack where a former member claimed he was held against his will for being gay as well.
Michael Lowry accused the Spindale church of beating him unconscious to cure him and keeping him detained for several months after coming out, but in 2013 he retracted his account.
He also lied about being gay after being confronted by his parents over a stash of pornography.
Word of Faith had also been investigated for child abuse when allegations of restraining children while screaming prayers surfaced, but no charges were filed because the complaints could not be “proved nor disproved,” according to reports by the Star-News published in 1995.
Footage from hidden cameras shown during an Inside Edition investigation showed adults and even young children stomping, punching the air and screaming at the top of their lungs during sermons.
Rutherford County Department of Social Services also removed a then-10-year-old girl from the church after separate allegations of abuse that year as well.
Lawsuits filed in 2003 also claimed Word of Faith held some of its members against their wills, records show.
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