By Howard Owens.
Pastor Marty Macdonald, founder of City Church in Batavia, is unequivocally denying allegations stemming from events 40 years ago that he sexually abused a teenage girl.
Melissa Hobson, formerly of Batavia, made the allegations public this past week, and her charges were repeated in a video interview with another local pastor.
Macdonald, through his son Ryan Macdonald (also asked to be part of the interview) declined an interview request from The Batavian and referred questions to his attorney, Anjan Ganguly, who issued the following official statement that was also sent to members of City Church:
“These allegations simply repeat decades-old accusations from a woman who alleges she was sexually abused by Pastor Marty approximately 40 years ago, when she was a minor. Pastor Marty absolutely denies sexually abusing this person. He absolutely denies ever having sexually abused anyone, especially a child,” the letter states. “It must be stressed that these are accusations, not proven facts. There has been ample opportunity for these accusations to be brought in a court of law, where Pastor Marty would have the opportunity to vindicate himself. Instead, the accusations are being made on the internet and, even worse, from the pulpit. It should also be stressed that the alleged misconduct is not connected to The City Church or any of its related ministries. The alleged misconduct allegedly occurred at a different church, long before The City Church was founded.”
The City Church web page for “Meet the Pastor” is currently a broken link. Macdonald is also not currently listed on the site's staff page. His son, Ryan Macdonald, is listed as "lead pastor."
The Batavian called Ganguly Wednesday and left a message to comment on Marty Macdonald’s current status at City Church. Ganguly has not responded to this specific question.
City Church has been a member of the Association of Related Churches, but City Church is not listed on the website’s church directory. A representative of ARC has not responded to a request for comment.
Hobson, who disclosed the accusations to a reporter in Batavia more than two decades ago but then declined to cooperate with a story, confirmed on Tuesday night that she did go on the record with Dee Parsons, editor of the Wartburg Watch, an online publication that covers allegations of sexual misconduct in churches.
Ganguly said he wondered why Hobson was coming out publicly with this now after all these years.
According to a post published on the site on Sept. 11, Hobson came forward and offered her story to Wartburg Watch at the prompting of Cindy Clemishire, a woman whose own story of abuse at a church made national news because it involved Pastor Robert Morris, of Texas, who has been an evangelical adviser to former President Donald Trump. NPR reported the story, and Morris resigned from his church, admitting to “inappropriate sexual behavior.”
Clemishire's story is similar to Hobson's. In the 1980s, she was 12 years old when she first came in contact with Morris. Wartburg Watch first reported the story. Morris was never charged with a crime.
Hobson’s version of events began in 1983 when the 12-year-old moved to Batavia with her family from Olathe, Kan., and her father became pastor at New Hope Ministries.
New Hope was located at 8020 Bank Street Road, now Cornerstone Church's location.
Marty Macdonald was then an assistant pastor at New Hope.
The family soon became friends with Marty Macdonald and his family. Macdonald was a farmer who served in a volunteer leadership position in the church. Macdonald was eventually installed as the assistant pastor at New Hope Ministries.
According to the report in Wartburg Watch, which Hobson confirmed accurately portrays what she told the website’s editor, things started to become uncomfortable early on.
In 1983, Melissa she started babysitting Macdonald’s two boys, she said.
“I remember the first time I noticed something was off,” she said.
She was making lunch for the children, she claims. Macdonald, covered in dust, came home from working on the farm. He entered the door and stood in the open foyer, in plain view of Melissa in the kitchen. He said that he needed to remove his coveralls and proceeded to strip them off in front of her. He has on his white T-shirt and underpants. She said he then went to shower and emerged with a towel wrapped around his bottom.
As time progressed, she said, he went out of his way to be “so kind” to her. He would often hug her while affirming her, which boosted her self-esteem.
During this time, the Smith and Macdonald families became close. Once hired full-time at the church, MacDonald spent much time interacting with the church’s child care center staff, where Melissa also worked.
The families began to vacation together as well. Melissa lived next door to the church, where Macdonald worked full-time, so there was close contact between Melissa and the young pastor. When she babysat, he would always be the one to take her home. He began calling her his ‘little sister” and would frequently hug her, she said.
As time progressed, she alleges, he would often " come out of the shower with a towel” whenever the wife was not home. He arranged to be with her more frequently while assisting with the remodel of her family’s home. He would offer to pick her up at school, where things would accelerate.
She said that by age 14, she felt she had a romantic relationship with him.
According to the Wartburg article, Hobson’s sister remarked on Macdonald’s charismatic personality while making an important observation.
"I remember staying with the Macdonalds when my parents were out of town preaching," Hobson's sister said, according to the article. "Melissa and I were sleeping together. I woke up to find Macdonald kneeling next to my sister in the bed. He told me that Melissa was sick and that she would be staying home from school. I recall being irritated because she stayed home sick a lot. Sometimes I even felt jealous of all the attention Macdonald paid to her."
Hobson said Macdonald was physically with her on those drives home from babysitting. He would put his hand on her thigh," Hobson alleges. Then, he began to pull off the road, and they would go “parking.” Hobson said she got so much validation from him that she wanted to spend time alone. This parking involved making out, petting, and him putting his hands in her pants and, she alleges, digitally penetrating her.
As she fell in love with him, he would warn her not to say anything about what they were doing. He said it would “destroy her parents’ ministry.”
After she turned 18 in 1989, she said she began to feel shame about the relationship and took a children’s pastor position at her father’s church. She stopped all intimacy with Macdonald and met and married her husband in 1992.
Hobson said she talked to her parents in 2000, and her dad asked for advice from his overseers, who said there was no legal recourse by then and that he should forgive Macdonald. Two other local overseers were brought in, and Hobson said that Macdonald allegedly confessed to an affair to them and his staff but did not disclose her age.
Paul Doyle, pastor of Cornerstone Church, has been outspoken about the issue recently, calling on Macdonald to repent. He said that he was present when Pastor Robert Smith, Hobson's father, confronted Macdonald in 2000 about the allegations. The Batavian spoke to Doyle on Wednesday for clarification about the conversation.
The meeting included Smith, Doyle, and Macdonald, who brought his wife, Patti, Doyle said. They met at Austin Park in Batavia. Smith said, according to Doyle, "I'm here to tell you I know you molested my daughter, and I'm here to forgive you and release you as my spiritual son."
There were a lot of head nods, as if he was taking his punishment, Doyle said of Macdonald.
"He had guilt all over him. There was no doubt in my mind he was guilty," Doyle said, adding that at no time did Macdonald ever deny the accusation or say that he never did anything like that. "He was sucking it up and taking his punishment. The cover-up was blatant. Nobody cared because it was Marty."
Doyle said that he has a forgiving heart but that this was never dealt with, and a family was destroyed in the process.
"I saw the devastation it did to a girl and her family," he said. "You're talking about a sexual predator that's preaching from the pulpit. I have no doubt this happened."
After providing The Batavian with Macdonald’s statement denying the allegations, Ganguly agreed to answer a few limited questions from The Batavian.
Did Macdonald know Hobson?
Yes, they were familiar with one another through the ministry at New Hope, he said.
Why would she either make this up or hang onto this accusation from decades ago if it was not true?
“So you know, I've had this conversation with my clients, and look, I've done a lot of Child Victims Act defense work on behalf of churches and ministers and whatever. And I always ask, where's this coming from? Yeah, sometimes it's coming from the fact that it happened, right? And no bones about it, right? And sometimes it's coming from somebody who needs a sense of closure, of justice, and I understand that. I will say what I'm a little confused by, and I mean this not derisively. I mean, it in a very legitimate way, why didn't she bring a Child Victims Act lawsuit during the two or three-year window when the statute was open in New York?” he said. “Again, I am scratching my head, and my clients are scratching their heads as to why this is coming up right now. I've had dozens of child victims act defense side cases against churches from allegations 20, 30, 40, and 50, my oldest one 60 years ago. Why didn't she bring a lawsuit she could have not only could have had her claims hypothetically vindicated, she could have received damages and, conversely, my client could have had his defense, you know, he should have had himself vindicated. Why is it coming up now? I don't know. Again, I'm perplexed by that.”
Does Marty agree with the part of the story where two overseers—Pastor Ron Domina and Tommy Reid—were involved with him and Melissa?
“So, in a very informal way, Reverend Domina and I know less about Reverend Tommy Reid, but I understand they had, let's say, some spiritual guidance role over pastor Marty, and so in their let's call it internal conflict resolution process the complainant reaches out to these people and says, I want this addressed. But my understanding is the allegations were levied, and there were discussions, and whatever resolution was to be had … I understand the complainant doesn't feel that way. I think the complainant alleges that these ministers swept it under the rug,” he said. “They didn't have any legal authority over Pastor Marty or anybody; they were, and they had some kind of spiritual advisory type.”
Was there a confession or agreement during these talks?
“In these talks, they reached a resolution where there was a confession or any agreement that something happened? I will say that I don't know,” he said. “But as to confession, I'll just rely on my client's statement that he categorically denies the allegations of sexual misconduct.”
Hobson, 52, said she isn’t seeking anything from Macdonald. She said shared her story now because she wanted to encourage victims of abuse to come forward just as Clemishire did.
“I want other victims to have a voice, you know, I want them to feel supported, brave enough to speak out. Cindy shared her story for me to know and understand that it's not okay, and it's not their fault, and I hope that I can empower others to have a voice by having a voice. I was silenced,” Hobson said .“I want to help others be brave and say, ‘You know what? This is not okay. ‘You can have a voice, you can speak, you can speak up, and you can come forward because that's where healing comes from, is being able to speak and being able to tell your story.”
Rumors had circulated about the abuse several years ago, but they didn’t go anywhere. Hobson and her husband Harlan said she wasn’t emotionally ready to go through any legal process. She claims that she was groomed — a type of conditioning to gain the trust of one’s victim before the abuse evolves — and abused, she alleges, from age 12 to 18.
She was made to feel as though she was to blame, she said, and she was left feeling discredited in the process. She also alleges that Ryan Macdonald accused her of seducing his father. She moved away from Batavia in 2011 after trying to share her story in the face of disbelief, shaming and name-calling, she said.
“At that time in my life, I had been groomed; I was convinced this was my fault. I carried an enormous amount of guilt and shame. It was a long time before I ever told anybody,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of therapy and a lot of spiritual support. God has truly sustained me.”
Her husband, Harlan, was on the phone with Hobson and The Batavian during the interview.
Harlan said he shared this difficult journey of recovery with his wife since they were married.
“I’ve walked through this with my wife for decades, and I know her heart and her desire to have other people find hope and for victims to find their voice. So, like she said, I want to echo that this is not okay, and the fact that it is so prevalent in our country, it's not okay. And when she was talking about doing her story, that's what that was. She said I want my voice to matter,” he said. “And anybody that's ever been around victims and been through therapy or trauma therapy, or anything like that, understands that the silencing of a victim's voice can actually be more traumatizing than the actual abuse that took place. I've watched that. I've seen that and the power within my wife when she can speak out.
“And the fact that she has still kept her faith in God and that she has still been an incredible mother and grandmother and through all the things that we’ve been through, amazes me every day, and that is the sincere focus of her heart,” he said. “This is very little about Macdonald and more about Melissa and her finally having the courage to speak up, to have a voice and really want to help others.”
The accusations didn't receive a public airing until June, when -- without mentioning Macdonald by name -- evangelist Mario Murillo held what was scheduled as a two-day tent revival meeting at Cornerstone. However, on the second day of the meetings, he cut them short, citing unrepentant sin in the Batavia area as the reason.
He said he came to Western New York because he believed God led him here to light a revival that would spread to the nation.
He said, “I laid before God, and I cried out to God, and I said to God send revival to Batavia. And the Lord said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘What? I’ve never heard you say, no.’ But the Holy Spirit said, ‘No.’ He told me that he was grieved. The spirit of God said, ‘I’m grieved.’ I said, ‘You’re grieved?’ Every word I’m about to tell you I’m speaking out of mercy, broken heart. I went to chapter five of First Corinthians, and there was sexual immorality in the Corinthians. Paul said that you are puffed up because the individual who is guilty of this particular sin is being celebrated among you.
He went on to say that something happened years ago, and it is grieving the Holy Spirit. A young girl was assaulted, he said, by a minister, and it was somewhat covered up because of the popularity of the man.
He said the individual responsible was never fully required to repent.
“The Lord has told me to warn that man of God, ‘Get right because the media is going to come after you.”
In a separate interview with Renee Ricco, a woman who calls herself a “citizen journalist,” Doyle claims he knows Hobson very well and that they are very close. He reveals he knew the details of the allegations against Macdonald long before Murillo’s tent revivals.
He said he has always been close to Hobson and was close to her father, who was also his minister at New Hope. Doyle said he was present when Melissa’s father confronted Macdonald about the allegations.
As the allegations reached more members of the New Hope congregation, it became a controversy.
“When we discovered it had happened, Pastor Marty was long gone when we learned about it, so nobody in our church could hold him accountable,” Doyle said. “He had already had his own ministry. He has his own overseers. He was already well established in the Western New York church community but we didn't see the outrage there, and I personally never saw it. And it's like they just wanted this to go away.”
Doyle said many people at the time, including church leadership, said the issue should be forgotten.
“Not only was he not dealt with, but it was also almost covered up,” Doyle said. “There was a proverbial sweeping under the rug of the issue. And as the outrage continued within our church, it began to turn back on us that we weren't forgiving, that we needed to let bygones be bygones. They would talk about my pastor, that he had a forgiveness problem. And this came from higher-ups in the Western New York, I guess, church oversight levels and so we we basically felt like we had to tuck tail it and run.”
Doyle said after the issue became known in the church, New Hope membership dropped from 350 to about a dozen (he did not specify the period of time). He hopes the issue being brought to light publicly will help bring more healing to Hobson and her family.
“This is an issue in her own words that she’s never been able to talk about,” Doyle said. “She’s gone through a tremendous amount of healing in herself. It’s amazing how God has helped her. But the issue is still there.”
Ganguly steadfastly maintains that Macdonald didn’t harm Hobson and he blames “third parties” (not Hobson) for raising the allegations. He wants the false allegations removed from the web.
“So, if they have people saying this church (City Church) is harboring a child molester, how does a congregation trust church leadership?” he said. “They (City Church) do need the false statements to be taken down. The burden is on the plaintiff to prove a case. One, it didn’t happen, and two, you had ample opportunity to go to court with evidence. We don’t even know if Melissa is behind this. We have third parties making these allegations.”
The official statement going out to the church also includes the following disclaimer:
Furthermore, The City Church’s leadership has never received any allegation of sexual abuse of a child in connection to any Church ministry or activity or by any Church staff member or volunteer. If you become aware of any such misconduct, please immediately report it to a church staff member. We will take swift and appropriate action, including referring the matter to law enforcement as necessary.
Howard Owens contributed to this story.
