You may recall that during Donald Trump’s first impeachment, most of the world saw a sitting president trying to bully a foreign country into helping him get dirt on his principal rival. The depths to which Trump went had even the most grizzled lawmakers sighing and gasping in shock.
But if you believe the religious right, what was really happening was an attack on their values. One of the so-called moral guardians driving that narrative was Pentecostal televangelist Perry Stone. You may recall that Stone maintained that Trump’s foes were demon-possessed, and threatened to sic the wrath of God on the Democrats if they didn’t leave Trump alone.
Soon after Trump’s first acquittal, Stone faced a storm of his own. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported in July 2020 that a number of female staffers at his ministry, Voice of Evangelism, claimed he’d acted inappropriately around them. I diaried about it here. Well, it turns out this was but the tip of a very large iceberg at Stone’s home base in the Chattanooga suburb of Cleveland, Tennessee. Late Saturday night, the Times Free Press revealed that Stone is facing allegations that he engaged in a staggering litany of sexual misconduct—and the FBI is asking questions.
In April 2020, Stone abruptly told his Facebook followers that he was clearing his travel schedule for several months. It turned out that the Voice of Evangelism board had supposedly ordered him to go on sabbatical due to a combination of medical concerns and the accusations of inappropriate behavior around female staffers. Curiously, the board found that Stone’s actions didn’t rise to the level of sexual harassment under Tennessee law.
However, Wyatt Massey of the Times Free Press revealed new details that raise serious doubts about that conclusion. Massey revealed that in April 2020, every member of Stone’s board received 11 letters outlining allegations of graphic sexual misconduct by Stone. Nine of the letters came from women with ties to Stone’s various ministries, while two others came from ministry staffers who knew about Stone’s alleged misdeeds. What did the letters say?
The letters — some of which were given to the Times Free Press and others described to a reporter — detailed allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Stone, including groping, showing that he was aroused while fully clothed and rubbing himself, asking women in his ministry about their breasts, kissing the women on the neck and lips, asking them to kiss him in similar ways, messaging them to send him pictures and asking them to massage him. At least one letter obtained by the Times Free Press said Stone would lock office doors to be alone with women.
Several of the women alleging misconduct told the Times Free Press that Stone told them he had a dream in which something bad was going to happen to his wife, Pam, and God told him he should be with the other woman. Several women said Stone would tell them he was lonely and his wife was not pleasing him sexually.
If that isn’t enough to make you gag, some of the accusers were in their early 20s—young enough to be the granddaughters of 62-year-old Stone.
To my non-lawyer’s mind, this potentially meets the legal definition of sexual harassment. And yet, the board didn’t see it that way. One has to wonder how that was possible. All the board did was order Stone to cease public ministry for the remainder of 2020. According to one of Stone’s former IT specialists, Bryan Cromer, this was merely window dressing. Cromer recalled that a mere two weeks after he and other staffers were told that Stone was going on leave, Stone was back in the VOE office.
Suddenly, Stone’s initial explanation of the claims looks even more tone-deaf than it already appeared. He told several members of his church, Omega Center International, that his actions were due to the stress of being in ministry. No, this isn’t snark. Hear it for yourself.
So if the accusers are to be believed, Stone was groping women young enough to be his grandddaughters, as well as asking them to kiss him and exchange pictures with him, simply because the stress of being out on the road was getting to him. What kind of boss, secular or otherwise, takes out the stress of his job on his female employees? If he even thought it acceptable to say that, even privately, it says a lot about the environment in his ministry—and it isn’t very good.
We already knew that whatever counseling Stone supposedly got wasn’t taking hold, judging by this video that Stone put out on Facebook not long after the Times Free Press initially started making inquiries in 2020.
Stone claimed to have had a dream about being chased by a snake sucking people into its belly—which he believed represented a demonic attack that was about to be unleashed on his ministry. In other words, a classic spiritual kick in the groin.
Right around the time that Massey renewed his inquiry, Stone started the bullying anew. On Nov. 23, Stone posted a warning to those who dared speak against him.
Stone revealed that he’d had a dream about seven ugly fish keeping other fish from being caught by the fishermen. The ugly fish were his critics, while the other fish were young people asking questions about Jesus and the fishermen were pastors like himself. He warned that those who spoke out against him were evil and were about to face retribution—in some cases, spiritual or even physical death.
A week later, at a church service, Stone was speaking about how people were walking out on church when a woman interrupted him and yelled that he was partly responsible “because you keep touching them.” Listen here.
Stone threatened to have the woman sued, and claimed she had talked to people who had “told 16 lies on my wife and I!” Later, one of Stone’s assistants, Bryan Cutshall, likened the woman to the crowd who heckled Jesus as he was being led off to be crucified, saying that this was part of the devil’s “plan against Jesus and those who support him.”
The following morning, Stone targeted the woman further on Facebook while paying tribute to fellow televangelist Marcus Lamb, who had died a few days earlier of COVID.
Stone claimed the woman was one of those ugly fish he’d mentioned a week earlier, and warned that one of those fish was going to “face a significant loss” for daring to touch one of his anointed.
The following Sunday, Stone told his flock that he was under attack from the devil because he was about to give “a revelation that would save entire nations.” He also warned them that it was “demonic,” “perverted,” and sinful to speak of past sins. But it turned out Stone was just warming up. Massey got a clip before Stone pulled the video from Facebook.
Stone yelled at his critics to “get a job” and vowed that he was not going to be run off by anyone. But Massey uncovered information that suggests Stone is merely putting up a front. According to five former VOE employees, the Chattanooga FBI is gathering information about the harassment claims.
The FBI is also delving into Stone’s finances and his connections to law enforcement in Cleveland and surrounding Bradley County. Notably, off-duty Bradley County deputies regularly work security details at Stone’s services, and the sheriff’s office has conducted training sessions on property owned by Stone. The sheriff’s office has received $36,500 from Stone’s organization since 2018, the second-highest amount during that time frame.
Predictably, no one is confirming or denying any investigation. But if the FBI has progressed to the point that it’s getting documents, it's already a BFD. Apparently Stone and those close to him are feeling to pressure. Several of the people Massey interviewed have received threatening text messages, and even had their property vandalized.
What we already know, however, is that this is a testament to the need for strong local journalism. Massey has gone after some pretty big tigers in the Chattanooga area. In the last two years, Massey has not only turned the hot lights on Stone, but also revealed a ministry in nearby Dalton, Georgia was literally hawking snake oil (diaried here). A pair of hucksters claimed to have a Bible that was flowing with anointing oil—but chemical tests revealed it was actually “flowing” with mineral oil from the local Tractor Supply store. More recently, he revealed that the pastor of Venue Church, a fast-growing church in Chattanooga, was engaging in a virtual catalog of abusive behavior, including cheating on his wife.
And now he’s uncovered evidence that suggests one of the men who led the campaign to bully the nation into bowing and praying to the orange god he helped make is following in the sordid footsteps of that orange god. And there may be a lot more to come.