Two lawsuits allege Florida church and Christian school failed to protect children from former youth pastor and teacher

Two lawsuits filed in Orange and Volusia County Circuit Courts allege that a Volusia County church and a Christian school failed to prevent the sexual abuse of young boys by a former employee, according to a report from the Orlando Sentinel. The lawsuits name Matthew Clark Graziotti as the alleged perpetrator, who is accused of sexually abusing multiple children under the age of 12 and of creating child pornography. A separate report from lawsuit-information-center.com describes the same case and says the former employee pleaded guilty to federal child exploitation offenses in 2014 and was sentenced to 210 years in prison in January 2015.

According to the Sentinel, the Edgewater Police Department investigated Graziotti in 2004 for suspected sexual abuse of young boys, but he was not criminally charged. The investigation led to his termination as a youth minister at Friendship Community Church. The Sentinel reports that Graziotti later served as a youth pastor at Edgewater Alliance Church from 2005 to 2014, and that he also taught at Warner Christian Academy in South Daytona.

The lawsuit-information-center.com report describes the claims differently in some respects. It says one complaint alleges church leaders received concerns about Graziotti’s behavior with boys before they hired him as a youth pastor. It says the other alleges the school failed to adequately investigate why he had been dismissed from an earlier position following a police investigation. The Sentinel does not report these specific allegations about what church or school leaders knew before hiring him.

One plaintiff, identified in the Sentinel report, says he was abused while attending Edgewater Alliance Church. The other says he was abused by Graziotti, who also taught at Warner Christian Academy. The Sentinel reports that both lawsuits cite negligence by the institutions. The attorneys representing the survivors, including Jenny Rossman of the Herman Law firm, argue that the institutions should have known about Graziotti’s past and taken measures to safeguard children, a claim that reflects the duty to protect the vulnerable (Proverbs 31:8-9).

The lawsuit-information-center.com report names Edgewater Alliance Church, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and the organization operating Warner Christian Academy as defendants. The Sentinel report refers to the church and school without listing the denomination. The two accounts also differ on the amounts sought. According to the Sentinel, one plaintiff is seeking at least $25 million in damages and the other at least $15 million. The lawsuit-information-center.com report puts the combined total at $40 million, which matches those figures. Both reports note that these are demands for damages, not verdicts or settlements.