Founding Calvary Chapel church agrees to pay $12 million to alleged rape survivor

Note: This story contains details about domestic violence and sexual assault.

The founding Calvary Chapel Association church in Costa Mesa, California, has agreed to pay $12 million to a woman who said she was raped 12 times by an ordained wrestling coach.

Church leaders repeatedly ignored warnings that pastor Jacob Joshua Harman was a “ticking time bomb,” according to attorneys David R. Sugden and Grady Howe, who represent the woman, a former church employee. She is not being named because she has identified herself as an abuse victim.

Evidence released exclusively to Roys Report (RR) shows Calvary Chapel senior leaders were told numerous times that Harman, an ex-convict, was violent and struggled with addiction. But they did not take it seriously.

Calvary Chapel school administrator Kenny Wood told a parent raising concerns about the wrestling coach to “go away and leave me alone,” documents show.  Former senior Pastor Brian Brodersen reportedly said the parents had “a vendetta” and allegations of physical violence did not need to be seriously investigated because the woman reporting them was “borderline crazy.” 

Witnesses at the time reported bruises on the woman’s wrists and chunks of hair missing from her head, according to the evidence.

The Southern California megachurch, led by Pastor Chuck Smith from 1965 until his death in 2013, was once the center of the Jesus People movement — a story dramatized in the film “Jesus Revolution.” Smith, played by actor Kelsey Grammer in the movie, believed Calvary Chapel should be a place for people who felt judged to “find forgiveness and freedom.”

Brodersen, who succeeded Smith as senior pastor, apparently interpreted that to mean no accountability for a minister repeatedly accused of violence, Attorney Sugden told RR.

“This is a church that clearly values grace and forgiveness and second chances,” Sugden said. “There’s a lot of beauty in that, but it must come with a corresponding responsibility. If you’re going to welcome someone with a criminal record and put that person in leadership, you have to make sure there are checks in place.”

Sugden sued on the alleged survivor’s behalf in Orange County Superior Court. The suit accused the church in the suburbs south of Los Angeles of aiding and abetting sexual assault and battery. Sugden announced the settlement to RR this week.

The church admitted no fault and offered no apology, according to the terms of the settlement, Sugden said. It agreed to pay $12 million to end the civil litigation.

Harman, who continues to coach wrestling in Southern California, with classes starting at $125 per month, denied all allegations of sexual violence during a seven-hour deposition in October. A lawyer representing Harman acknowledged the settlement on Tuesday but declined to make a statement.

Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, currently led by Brodersen’s son, Char Brodersen, told RR that the legal settlement closes “a painful chapter” in the church’s history.

“The individual’s behavior, including those violations addressed in a recently resolved lawsuit, was deemed unacceptable and a breach of our code of conduct,” the church said in an unsigned email. “We are grateful to have reached a resolution that reflects our commitment to caring for those affected by harmful behavior.”

The lawsuit was scheduled for a jury trial in Orange County this fall. Court records show a judge was informed last month that a trial would no longer be necessary.

Harman reportedly encountered Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in 2000, while on probation. He pleaded guilty the year before to charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

Records in Las Vegas, Nevada, show Harman deliberately rammed his vehicle into four other occupied cars on March 6, 1999. As he would later explain in his conversion testimony, he was trying to quit drinking and doing drugs and had a paranoia episode where he believed people were following him.

“I was pretty scrambled,” Harman said in his deposition last year, “and then I think this (was) exacerbated by three days of no sleep and cutting, you know, chemicals, like, cold turkey.”

He faced a maximum possible sentence of 66 years in prison, but the court chose leniency, handing down a three-year suspended sentence. Harman found himself the following Sunday at Calvary Chapel Golden Springs, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles. He responded to an altar call to give his life to Christ. Immediately after, he ran into a former college wrestling coach who asked him if he wanted a job.

Harman was quickly hired at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa to help with Maranatha Christian Academy’s wrestling teams, according to church records. He was also invited regularly to share his testimony, which included four generations of alcoholics, child abuse, college parties, black-out drinking, jail and then Jesus and wrestling.

Harman became an integral part of the life of the church and grew close to many Calvary Chapel ministers. He would run into Smith in the hallway, Harman testified in his deposition, and Smith would always ask about the wrestling team and their upcoming competitions.

“He loved the wrestling,” Harman said. “He really saw himself as, like, a man’s man.”

After six years working at the church, Harman asked to be ordained, so he could minister to men in prison. The church agreed. Smith and three other church leaders signed his ordination certificate on March 15, 2006.

As Harman remembers it, no one on the pastoral staff or the board of elders asked him questions about his criminal past, his spiritual growth, his relationship with God or his theology.

No one asked any questions, either, when Harman, who was 31 at the time, started dating an 18-year-old girl he met while leading a youth group. He testified during his deposition that he specifically asked Brodersen, then an assistant minister, if the church would have any issues with their relationship.

“And he said, ‘No, you should do as the Lord leads,’” Harman recalled. “He was great.”

According to the young woman, though, the relationship was deeply troubled. She later alleged that while they were dating, Harman pushed himself on her sexually before she was ready. She said that after they married, she realized her husband had a serious, ongoing drinking problem. She filed for divorce in 2014.

Brodersen reached out to the woman that same year, church records show, to tell her that was not biblical.

The minister testified in his deposition that he did not ask what she meant when she said her marriage was “hell.” He also dismissed concerns about addiction.

“I didn’t see that in Jake,” Brodersen said. “He did not have the appearance of an addict in any of my interactions with him.”

Harman testified that after his divorce, he started drinking until he blacked out three or four times during the workweek and more often on weekends.

Harman’s drinking problem did not stay secret forever. In February 2016, he was arrested for drunk driving in Huntington Beach. He later pleaded guilty.

Harman testified in his deposition that he assumed that the arrest would cost him his job. But Brodersen did not fire him. Or even discipline him.

“The man extended grace,” Harman said. “He put just, like, a couple of little, like, brothers around me … to just be with me, you know?”

Brodersen told the suing attorneys he did not ask anyone to investigate the incident but forbade Harman from driving student athletes. The church produced no written evidence of formal restrictions.

Around the same time, church leaders and school administrators started receiving anonymous emails raising concerns about Harman. One came from “Anon Bill,” another from “John Baptist” and a third, “Judas Iscariot.”

“Jacob has proven to be an alcoholic, and have an addiction to narcotics and you continue to empower him,” one email said. “He is a ticking time bomb.”

Brodersen dismissed the concerns. “This person obviously hates Jake,” he said in an email to a school administrator.

The complaints did not go away, however. In 2017, anonymous warnings were sent to parents of students in the wrestling program. Parents started coming forward with concerns about Harman’s behavior too, church records show. They shared stories about him hurting students in training and assigning them dangerous weight loss regimens. They said Harman told students about his drinking and talked about considering suicide, according to evidence collected for the civil suit.

Harman was frequently described as volatile. He once lost his temper during a worship service, and it was caught on video. He berated students for not singing loudly enough — shouting, “Weak! Weak!” — and then tore open his shirt.

Board members Roger Wing and Mike Mugavero were assigned to look into the “situation with Jake” in June 2017.

The evidence appears to show, however, that their top priority was limiting Calvary Chapel’s liability. Mugavero said in a memo to Wing that the concerned parents — not the coach— should be seen as a “ticking time bomb that needs to be defused.”

He proposed texting parents to assure them the issue was being handled. Wing, who worked as Smith’s personal assistant for more than a decade before becoming an administrative pastor, responded, “Nothing in writing.”

The day the two men started looking into the school “situation with Jake,” the woman who would later sue contacted Brodersen’s office and asked for a meeting. Brodersen’s assistant sent him an email with the subject line, “Emergency.”

The senior minister did not respond. Brodersen testified in his deposition he does not remember the email but would not have responded anyway, because the situation had been delegated.

The woman followed up with a letter two days later. She said that earlier that year, she tried to help Harman when he showed up at her house drunk. The woman, who is not being identified because of the abuse allegations, said she got into the car to drive Harman home, and he started yelling at her.

“I don’t remember details of what came first or last,” she wrote. “He … smashed his hand down on my wrist and hand a few times and hit the side of my head on my ear and the back of my head and reached across and choked me with one hand. He was squeezing so tight that I was hitting the driver side window with my left hand for him to stop.”

The woman said she somehow got Harman to his home and hid in the bathroom. She said she called a friend, whose children also attended the school, to rescue her. She told church leaders the friend could confirm the injuries on her wrists, hands, neck and head.

Board members’ investigative notes show the friend did confirm she picked the woman up that night. She was running, crying in the street, the friend told them, and had visible marks on her body.

The woman who would later testify under oath that this was not the only time Harman was violent. She alleged he forced her to have sexual intercourse against her will on 12 separate occasions. She said Harman once forced her to sleep in his bed all night, using a jiu-jitsu hold to keep her from leaving.

And she said that despite working for the church, she was afraid to report anything. She did not think church leaders would believe her. 

Board member Mugavero wrote in his notes that he “discounted her testimony” because he suspected she was romantically involved with Harman. Brodersen apparently thought this was the right decision, telling Mugavero that he asked Harman about the allegations and Harman told him the woman was “borderline crazy.”

In his deposition, Brodersen testified that he did not think the allegations should be taken seriously because the woman and Harman were adults “in some sort of relational thing gone bad.”

The board decided, nonetheless, to sever the church’s relationship with Harman “as soon as possible.” One board member said the coach had become a “huge” liability.

Harman’s ordination was revoked on July 25, 2017. He continued to receive donations through the church for several months, church records show.

Some of the wrestling student’s parents, however, was still not satisfied. Fernando and Alena Zotea started posting allegations on social media.

“Jacob Harman is a criminal in the USA,” one of the Zoetas allegedly wrote in an Instagram story, set to disappear in 24 hours. “He is a fake pastor …. He raped one of the moms and he says the devil made him do it.”

In 2018, Harman sued the couple, alleging defamation. The case took five years to wind its way to a conclusion. But a judge in Santa Ana, California, ruled in October 2023 that Harman was not defamed — in part because he did, in fact, sexually assault the woman who worked at the church.

The judge noted that the woman said she was raped on 12 occasions. He said her testimony was “detailed and compelling,” and he believed there was sufficient evidence to determine she was sexually assaulted “on at least one occasion.”

“That … is sufficient,” the judge wrote, “to accurately characterize and truthfully assert that (Harman) is a ‘rapist.’”

Attorneys David R. Sugden and Grady Howe said that vindication was not enough, however. They believed that Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa also needed to be held responsible for years of looking the other way and ignoring warning after warning.

The $12 million settlement — even without an acknowledgment of wrongdoing — “delivers justice,” Howe told RR.

“It is the right result,” he said. “We’re pleased our client can put this behind her and move forward.”

A final court hearing to approve the settlement is scheduled for January.

Daniel Silliman is senior reporter/editor at Roys Report. He began his two decades in journalism covering crime in Atlanta and has since led major investigations into abuse and misconduct in Christian contexts. Daniel and his wife live in Johnson City, Tennessee.