Jury awards $124 million to woman sexually abused by Fort Worth pastor when she was a child
A woman who sued a Fort Worth pastor accused of sexually assaulting her when she was a child was awarded over $120 million in damages by a Tarrant County jury on Wednesday.
Jose Francisco Bernal, 60, of North Richland Hills, was a pastor at the Tabernaculo De Vida Pentecostal Church in Fort Worth when he was accused of numerous acts of sexual abuse of two victims.
The North Texas women alleged the assaults occurred when they were girls living in Hurst between 2007 and 2013, the Star-Telegram previously reported.
Bernal was arrested in 2017 and charged with two felony counts of continuous sexual assault of a child, but five years later a jury could not reach a decision and the criminal case was declared a mistrial in 2022. Prosecutors did not seek a new trial and dismissed the criminal charges, according to court records.
One of the women filed a lawsuit against Bernal in 2019. Eleven of the 12 jurors in this week’s civil trial agreed that Bernal sexually abused the victim and intentionally caused her severe emotional distress.
The jury reached a verdict to award the victim a total of $124 million, to be paid by Bernal. The total judgment amount includes $11 million for mental anguish sustained in the past, $20 million for the mental anguish that the victim might sustain in the future, and $93 million for exemplary damages, court records show.
The victim had also sued the Tabernaculo De Vida Pentecostal Church, but the church reached a settlement to pay her $100,000 and sign over the deed for the church property on West Dickson Street to her, according to court documents.
Attorney Brian Butcher from the Noteboom Law Firm represented the victim.
Asked about the size of the judgment and how much money Bernal might actually be able to pay, Butcher told the Star-Telegram, “We are going to do our very best to collect everything that can be collected to help our clients.”
Butcher said it was an extremely important case from the standpoint of two young girls who had been victimized by a “pedophile operating under the license of biblical authority.”
He said he wants to send a message to the community to make sure that abuse like this doesn’t happen again, “to protect other children and to help restore trust in church institutions by holding somebody accountable for doing despicable things and using God’s name to do it.”
“Churches above every other place in America should be places where children are nurtured and kept safe,” Butcher said. “There has been an epidemic of clerical abuse scandals that has deeply eroded the objectives that parents are trying to reach by taking their kids to church, which is to teach them about faith and to have them be a part of a supportive and loving community.”