Lawsuit claims seminary failed to stop molester

[Judi Lynn]

Aug. 27, 2005, 7:44PM

Lawsuit claims seminary failed to stop molester
Dallas school let student return to graduate and then become a pastor
By DARREN BARBEE
Fort Worth Star-telegram

Aaron Babb believes a single phone call to police 17 years ago would have changed his life: He might never have been sexually abused, attempted suicide or been awakened by his own screams.

If Dallas Theological Seminary officials had alerted authorities in 1988, when they learned that one of their students, Jon Gerrit Warnshuis, was accused of sexually molesting a boy who was 12 or 13 years old, Warnshuis might have gone to prison then.

Instead, Warnshuis was allowed to graduate from the seminary in 1992 and later became pastor of a church in the small North Texas town of Argyle. In 2001, he was sentenced to prison for molesting Babb and other boys for years while at Oak Hills Evangelical Free Church.

On Monday, Babb, now 22, will seek to hold the seminary accountable in a Fort Worth courtroom. The case will test whether an institution that knew of Warnshuis' past abuse when it granted him a master's degree in theology is responsible for his actions.
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3327088
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