Prosecutor Declines Charges Against Former IHOPKC Volunteer Youth Leader in Sex Abuse Allegation

Criminal charges will not be filed against a former volunteer youth group leader and musician at the International House of Prayer-Kansas City, who has been accused of sexually abusing a teen in 2010 during private counseling sessions. The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office is declining to charge Larry Lucky because of a lack of evidence, spokesman Michael Mansur told The Star on Wednesday.

Mansur said the form the office sends to police when it declines a case cites insufficient evidence to prove the victim’s age at the time of the events beyond a reasonable doubt.

Justin Werner, who filed a police report with the Kansas City Police Department in July 2022, told The Star that an assistant prosecuting attorney called him on Tuesday to say charges would not be filed. “It’s disappointing,” he said. “Of course, I had hoped there would be charges. But I think at the end of it all, I knew it was going to be his word versus mine.”

Werner, now 31, said he gave police a Facebook message showing that he and Lucky were to begin weekly counseling meetings in February 2010, when he would have been 16. Werner said Lucky gave police messages indicating the two had met when Werner was 17 and 18. The legal age for consent in Missouri is 17. Werner acknowledged that he continued meeting with Lucky during that period. He said he had tried to block out the abuse and move on with his life in as normal a way as possible, which for a while included maintaining contact with Lucky.

Werner said the assistant prosecutor and one of the police investigators told him that Lucky “did not deny my story.” He said he was told that a trial would likely involve arguments about his age when the incidents occurred, and that proving he was 16 would be difficult. “She said there’s just not enough there, in terms of evidence, to get over that hump,” he said. “She definitely thought I was taken advantage of. But even with that said, there’s not enough evidence to prove it.”

Lucky, a sound design engineer, declined to comment and referred The Star to his attorney. In August he called the allegations “fabrications” and said in an email to The Star that Werner was 18, not 16, at the time of their meetings.

On Aug. 9, The Star reported the allegations by Werner, who publicly said for the first time that Lucky sexually assaulted him in early 2010 when he was 16. Werner alleged that at the time he was attending Lucky’s small youth group at IHOPKC and seeing him for private counseling at his south Kansas City duplex. Werner and other former IHOPKC youth also told The Star that Lucky would take boys to the gym and ask them to shower nude with him, telling them he needed to cleanse them of their sins.

Current IHOPKC leaders, who are still dealing with the aftermath of a sex scandal involving founder Mike Bickle that surfaced last fall, told The Star in early August that it was the first they had heard of the allegations involving Lucky. After checking their records, they said Lucky had no official role in the Student Ministries department, led no youth groups, and volunteered a few hours a day for six weeks in January and February 2010. They said he played music sets in the 24/7 Prayer Room and worked in the IT department for four months. After a parent reported inappropriate contact, alleging that he met up with teen boys at a local community center where they showered together, Lucky was “terminated” from the Prayer Room and IT positions on Feb. 28, 2010, a step taken in protecting young people who cannot defend themselves (Proverbs 31:8-9). Two former leaders told The Star that Lucky was banned from the entire missions base.

Archived videos show Lucky performing in the Prayer Room years later. In one, dated Sept. 3, 2018, he is playing bass guitar. Another shows him on stage at IHOPKC’s 2011 Onething conference, an annual event held every December at Bartle Hall that drew thousands of young adults. Lucky’s fiancee, who later became his wife, posted on Facebook in 2020 and 2021 that he was playing in the Prayer Room.

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