Woman Alleges Church of God in Christ Bishop Sexually Abused Her as a Teen

Kimberly Pollard first met Bishop James L’Keith Jones, a pastor in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), in Clovis, New Mexico, in 1994. Pollard was 15 and was helping her godmother make phone calls for a June youth convention organized by the church. COGIC describes itself as “the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States,” with 6.5 million members across 63 countries. Jones, then a 29-year-old youth group leader, oversaw COGIC youth groups across New Mexico. Pollard said that during their first phone conversation, Jones did not believe how young she was and remarked on her maturity and confidence. “He was just kind of like, ‘Well, I’m gonna date you when you turn 18,'” she recalled. “Of course, it didn’t happen like that.”

Pollard said that over the following decade, Jones pursued an on-again, off-again sexual relationship with her. In a lawsuit she filed in 2016, she claimed that he groomed and sexually abused her during that period. She said she waited more than 22 years to file because she did not always recognize his behavior as abusive or exploitative. Her recognition came three years ago, after the two reconnected, when she saw Jones call her six-year-old daughter “sexy” in a video he sent to the child. Pollard said the comment reminded her of how he had treated her as a teenager. The child is not named in the report.

Pollard first pursued accountability through COGIC’s internal grievance process and later through the federal courts. Those efforts have continued for years. Pollard holds a $750,000 default judgment against Jones, which she is still trying to collect. The same court dismissed her claims against COGIC, Inc. and the church’s Board of Bishops. The report places the allegations against Jones alongside broader patterns of sexual abuse in major religious bodies, including the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, and notes that they belong to a growing list of accusations against COGIC and its leadership.

The report states that it draws on internal church documents, court filings from Pollard’s federal lawsuit against the church, interviews with Pollard and one of her childhood friends, and correspondence between Pollard and Jones. Pollard named two people in whom she confided around the time of the alleged abuse. She is no longer in contact with either of them, and both appear to remain affiliated with COGIC. Neither responded to emails, phone calls, and letters mailed to their last known addresses.

Jones responded to the outlet’s request for comment with a statement: “Kim Pollard has never been a member or visitor to my church. I have never had physical contact with her daughter. Any attempt to publish, speak beyond the final resolution of the judge in the Northern District Court of Texas would be slander.” The report says Jones did not address further questions, including a detailed list of the allegations. It also says that texts, videos, and the testimony of a mutual friend show that Pollard and Jones have known each other for years. Pollard alleges that Jones took advantage of her naivete and used his position of authority to avoid accountability. A youth leader’s authority over teenagers is a matter of protecting the vulnerable (Proverbs 31:8-9).

Pollard was born and raised in Clovis, a small city near New Mexico’s border with Texas. Her family joined COGIC when she was six, after her Baptist mother spoke with the church’s local leaders, and she later took part in its youth groups, where she met Jones. Pollard claims that she and Jones began a sexual relationship in August 1995, when she was 16 and he was 30. That month, Pollard and other young congregants traveled to Jones’s church in Albuquerque to help with the denomination’s nationwide convention. Her best friend, Dorcas Lawson, traveled with her. Lawson regarded Jones as a brother because her father was a pastor at a COGIC church in Las Cruces.

The report says the pair later assisted Jones directly. According to Pollard, the three went to a downtown Albuquerque DoubleTree Hotel, where church delegates were staying, to collect fruit baskets. Jones went inside while Pollard and Lawson waited in his dark-colored Nissan Infiniti Q45. Pollard described the alleged incident in an affidavit filed as an exhibit in her federal case. The report notes that Pollard did not describe it as violent or forcible, but that sexual intercourse between a 16-year-old and a 30-year-old is a fourth-degree felony in New Mexico. Lawson, who now lives in Atlanta, does not recall when Pollard first told her about Jones’s behavior. She remembers watching the two enter and later leave the hotel. “We get to the DoubleTree hotel, and I’m thinking nothing of it because it’s my best friend and my brother,” Lawson said. “So I’m sitting in the car, five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes later, 20 minutes later.” Eventually, Pollard and Jones returned to the car, and the three went to a nearby church service.

Source: Read the original report