Bill Gothard, the well-known minister of the Duggar family from "19 Kids and Counting," has been slapped with more sexual abuse charges, putting him in the same predicament as comedian Bill Cosby.
"Like Bill Cosby, it continues to grow with more and more people coming forward," said Texas Atty. David Gibbs III, who filed the lawsuit for three of his victims, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The complaint reveals that some of the women were even minors when Gothard allegedly abused them. Joy Simmons and Jennifer Spurlock were sent to Gothard after they suffered from sexual abuse at the hands of other men from the ministry, but what Gothard did to them was worse, Gibbs said.
"To have your education ripped from you and to have your childhood ripped from you, it's extremely difficult. It's just evil," Spurlock, who was only 15 when she first encountered Gothard, told the New York Daily News.
According to Spurlock, she was sent to an Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) training centre in Indianapolis by her family after she was sexually assaulted by a man receiving counselling at a Christian centre. There, she caught the attention of Gothard.
"Mr. Gothard was just staring right at me, so much so that other girls would say 'You're so lucky, he couldn't take his eyes off of you,'" said Spurlock. "It started sitting on the sofa hip-to-hip, spreading his legs and touching my knees and smelling my hair," before Gothard began touching her sensitive parts.
What happened to Simmons was pretty similar. "He would also tell me that it was my fault that I was assaulted and he would ask God to cleanse me," revealed Simmons. "We were isolated. No friends, no way out, no education. We were pretty stuck. Gothard said since I didn't cry out, I was just as guilty as the guy who assaulted me."
