Three families file lawsuits against Ignite Life Center for cover-up of sexual abuse during summer youth program

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Three families have filed civil lawsuits in Orange County against Ignite Life Center and the Florida Multicultural District Council of the Assemblies of God, alleging sexual abuse and cover-ups related to the arrest of Gabriel Hemenez last July for two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation and one count of attempted sexual battery of a minor at the church. Hemenez recently entered a plea of guilty in the three cases and was sentenced to five years in state prison, followed by eight years of sexual offender probation.

The first plaintiff is a 20-year-old man who lives in Alachua County and attended Ignite Life Center from a young age through early adulthood. He attended the 2021 Ignite Summer Internship, a program that is associated with two other recent arrests for lewd or lascivious battery on victims under 16. The plaintiff alleges that Hemenez sexually abused him in the boys’ dormitory during the program and also that the church leadership covered up a report from another victim in 2019 and continued to let Hemenez work with minors. The plaintiff also alleges that he reported the sexual abuse to church pastors in 2022, and they told him they had reported the incident to Gainesville Police Department, but he later learned that was not true.

The plaintiffs’ complaints allege that the church and District Council engaged in “an established and ongoing modus operandi… to handle allegations of sexual abuse internally to protect [themselves] from scrutiny, public scandal, and potential financial losses from allegations of child sexual abuse becoming public information.”

The lawsuits request compensatory damages, costs, and other relief from the Court.

The second plaintiff is a 19-year-old man who lives in New York and attended Assemblies of God churches in New York; he attended Ignite Summer Internship starting in 2017 and alleges that Hemenez sexually abused him in July 2021.

The third plaintiff is the parent of a 17-year-old boy who lives in Texas but grew up in Alachua County and attended Ignite Life Center from an early age. The plaintiff alleges that the boy was sexually abused by Hemenez in July 2021 during the Ignite Summer Internship program. In a statement sent to Alachua Chronicle, the plaintiff said, “As a mother and a believer in Christ, I am filing this lawsuit to expose a broken system and provoke change at Ignite Life Center. I’ve experienced firsthand what this type of negligence does to a young life, to our household, and to the people closest to us. It has been devastating, and the wounds it has caused cut very deep. It is my hope that this lawsuit holds Ignite Life Center and the Assemblies of God Church accountable for their poor decisions, bad behavior, and, most importantly, the lives they have damaged. Because of the carelessness of this leadership, some of these children may never recover, and some will never return to church again.”

The lawsuits were filed by Horowitz Law of Fort Lauderdale, and Jessica Arbour of Horowitz Law says these are the first of several lawsuits her firm’s attorneys plan to file against the defendants. In a statement sent to Alachua Chronicle, Arbour said, “The abuse of children within a close-knit church community is devastating to those children, their families, and to an entire community faced with the idea that their church leaders have not always lived up to their word that children are safe and protected. I applaud these brave young men for coming forward to break the silence on their experience and for living their biblical teachings: what is done in the dark will always come to light.”