The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CHURCH APOLOGY
In a letter sent Friday, Bill Coates, the current pastor of Gainesville’s First Baptist Church, publicly apologized for the sexual abuse Fleming Weaver confessed to while serving as scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 26, sponsored by the church. Here are excerpts from that letter. To read the full letter, go to myAJC.com.
Today at First Baptist Church, we are in a state of deep regret and sadness. In recent days, we learned beyond any doubt that several decades ago ... a trusted scout leader molested several scouts, damaging them and their families forever. At that time, those who handled the matter, in agreement with the boys’parents, took action to prevent further damage to others by banning the offender from working with children and youth in the future. They provided counseling to all involved but did not report the incidents to any legal authority, honoring the wishes of the families. ... Because these facts remained unknown to the great majority of the church and the community, the offender continued as a deacon until his official removal from any leadership position within the church when these facts were recently verified.
Jesus said,“What is whispered in secret shall be shouted from the rooftop.”In recent weeks, the whispers some have heard for years have been shouted aloud. Doubts are removed, the truth is exceptionally painful. Apparently, secrecy was the chosen way of handling such matters thirty-five years ago. Today, this would be handled not only by removing the scout leader and preventing him from ever working again with youth, but also by reporting him to law enforcement. Thankfully, youth are more protected today than ever, both by law and by our own policies and guidelines established to prevent abuse.
When Tim Black was in fourth grade, he was assigned to write about the person he admired most. He chose Fleming Weaver, a family friend and accomplished Scout who became scoutmaster of Troop 26 in 1969.
“Everybody in scouting knew him,” said Black, 49 and now an associate rector at Atlanta’s All Saints Episcopal Church.
Black was an eager pupil. He was 11 when he joined the Scouts and was quickly on his way to becoming senior patrol leader.
“Weaver was always generous with his attention, said Black. That wasn’t unusual. Concepts like “grooming,” in which pedophiles work to establish an emotional connection with their eventual victims, were not a part of the lexicon in 1980.
Looking back, Black says he knows that’s exactly what Weaver was doing to win his, and his parents’, trust.
“There was a lot of giftgiving,” he said. “And then it became more about him testing physical boundaries. Pinching on the butt, grabbing the butt.”
Then came an overnight trip to Kennesaw Mountain. With the senior patrol leader unable to attend, Black assumed the role. It required additional responsibilities and time alone with the scoutmaster. While his fellow Scouts traveled on a bus, Black rode in Weaver’s car.
“He just starts telling me these nasty jokes. Really off-color,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘This was kind of cool.’”
That evening, while sharing Weaver’s tent, an unwanted sexual relationship began that would last nearly two years, Black said.
“I remember not sleeping at all that night and being in total shock,” Black said. “It was more like a seduction than a coercion. But it was a coercion.”
“After that it was open season on me,” he said. “(Weaver) would seize any opportunity to touch me inappropriately.”
Telling someone what happened was not an option. It was the early 1980s. Such things weren’t discussed, especially in a small town.
“Places like Gainesville have a tendency to cover things like this up,” Black said.
Besides, he figured, who would believe him?
“Nobody in his right mind would’ve thought he was capable of that,” he said. “He was too good a man. A formidable dude.
“He knew that no one would ever tell. He was exploiting his position of trust.”
Burdened by his secret, Black became depressed. He lost interest in his studies and slept frequently. When he was 15 he left Scouts, but he couldn’t put the experience behind him. He finally called a teacher, who counseled Black to tell his mom and dad.
“Fortunately my parents believed me. They couldn’t have been more supportive,” said Black, now a married father of three.
‘I’m not at ease with what happened’
After they spoke with the pastor of First Baptist, “it was decided that we would not go to the police,” Reuben Black told the AJC.
“I was given the impression that they’d look into it and wouldn’t find anything.”
More than a decade later, however, police finally did investigate.
Asked by GBI agent Tony Williamson in 1995 whether he had stopped molesting Scouts in 1981, Weaver responded, “That’s right. Now do you have something that would cause you to doubt that?”
Weaver added, “If you do I’d like to know about it. Then I’ll tell you if ... you know.”
‘I’ve been praying this would happen’
Now 59, the man whose tip prompted the police investigation of the former scoutmaster said he feels vindicated after years of being doubted.
“After all these years of having people not believe me, now they’ll know I was telling the truth all along,” he said last week. “I’ve been praying something like this would happen for 46 years.”
The man, who asked not to be identified, said he told Brown, then the youth pastor, about Weaver. He said he believed Brown did all he could, but the abuse continued.
He also told his parents. His dad didn’t believe him, his mom “sorta did,” he said.
“It sort of makes you give up,” he said. “It’s you versus the world.”
He lives alone now. A marriage ended and he had been in and out of prison, mostly for drug offenses.
“I think about it more now than I did then,” he said. “It’s disgusting the way it stays with you.”
As he struggled, Weaver thrived. He spent 25 years working in human resources at Gainesville’s Chicopee Mill, where he had been hired by Robb Lawson’s grandfather.
The unidentified victim said that he was moved to speak to authorities after reading that Weaver had moved on to another highprofile job, this time for a local hospital.
“That pissed me off when I read that,” he told police in 1994. “Here I see him going in one direction and I’m going in the other. There’s no telling where I could be or what I could be doing if those years of my life had ... not happened.”
‘Report it before the day was over’
Weaver’s behavior had been the subject of whispers and gossip that apparently even reached top politicians. According to a victim statement contained in the law enforcement file, the office of Nathan Deal — then a congressman — “is aware of the case.” Deal’s longtime top aide, Chris Riley, said he had no recollection of that. But he said standard protocol if they had learned of such an allegation would be to report it to the appropriate agency. Riley noted that Deal signed the 2015 child sex abuse law being used by Lawson to seek damages from Weaver.
Deal, who continues to attend services at First Baptist, accepted a $200 donation from Weaver in his 2010 run for governor. Riley also attends the church and his father served as a deacon along with Weaver.
Told by the AJC that Weaver had admitted to molesting Scouts, Bill Coates, the current senior pastor, expressed mild surprise and said Weaver would be removed from his role in the church leadership.
“Fleming’s service as a deacon and (church) leader are in the past,” Coates said.
Coates became the pastor at First Baptist in 1998 and acknowledged he had heard the rumors about Weaver, “but there was never any kind of proof.”
Longtime church administrator Kent Murphey said he, too, heard the rumors but at first “didn’t believe it.” Then, in 1995, the church’s pastor at the time instructed Murphey to make certain Weaver had no access to children.
Still, Weaver would go on to be repeatedly elected as a deacon by the 3,000member church. Outside of the church, he served on many charitable boards.
The new revelations in Gainesville come nearly four years after the Boy Scouts were rocked by the release of hundreds of socalled “perversion files” detailing how the organization for decades covered up allegations of sexual abuse. Those files, which list “ineligible volunteers” going back to 1947, contain an entry for Troop 26 but no name. The Northeast Georgia Council of the Boy Scouts of America declined requests by the AJC to review their file on Weaver.
Before Weaver arrived in Gainesville he was an assistant scoutmaster in Athens under Ernest Boland, according to Reuben Black. Files made public by the Boy Scouts in 2012 showed Boland repeatedly molested Scouts in his troop. Boland’s file made no mention of Weaver. But after Boland died, Weaver made a donation in his name to Thornwell Home for Children, records from the Clinton, S.C., orphanage show.
Officials interviewed for this story blamed the failure to act, in part, on the times. But it was also clear that few chose to investigate the rumors about Weaver that had persisted for years.
“There was something there,” Murphey said. “But something formal and real, other than a rumor, wasn’t something I knew about.”
Both First Baptist and the Boy Scouts say they’ve made major changes since then to prevent such abuse from happening again.
“If I had any hint such a thing was going on, we’d report it (to authorities) before the day was over,” Coates said.
The Scouts said in recent years they have reviewed all their files and reported any outstanding allegations of abuse to law enforcement.
“In the years since these allegations took place we have continued to develop and enhance our efforts to protect youth, regularly consulting with experts from law enforcement, child safety, psychology and other disciplines,” said Trip Selman, Scout Executive for the Northeast Georgia Council.
‘I was unsuccessful at hanging myself’
Lawson said he came forward in hopes of putting down the burden he has carried most of his life. He said he’s been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and admits suicidal thoughts are not uncommon.
Soon after his encounter with Weaver, he tried to make good on those thoughts, he said, tossing a fabric Izod belt around a wooden beam in his parents’ basement.
“It stretched. I fell. I failed,” he said. “I was unsuccessful at hanging myself.”
A divorced father of two children, 11 and 8, who has since remarried, Lawson said he hopes the lawsuit will bring justice and some measure of peace.
“I want to become a better husband, a better father. A better person,” he said. “This was preventing that.”
Lawson’s attorneys, Esther Panitch and Natalie Woodward, said in a statement, “For Robb, naming his rapist and holding him accountable is an important step in the pursuit of justice.”
Coates and Murphey say the revelations will rock their church and said they cannot cast out Weaver, even as he faces fresh scrutiny.
“It’s going to be a challenge for First Baptist,” Murphey said.
Added Coates, “As a church now we have a duty, even to Fleming.”
In his 1995 interview with police, Weaver was asked what he would do if he learned another scoutmaster was abusing boys.
“I would, even though I realize that I’m just as guilty as that person was at one time, I would still have to take appropriate action and that would be to reveal that,” he said.