A Denver family is suing St. John’s Church and School, alleging that its lead pastor pressured their then-13-year-old daughter to recant her account of being sexually assaulted by the church’s music director in 2022, rather than reporting the allegations to police. The girl, now 17, says she was assaulted by Diego Marroquin, a music director at the Wash Park congregation, and that when her family came forward, church leadership accused her of lying instead of acting to protect her.
According to The Denver Post, the lawsuit alleges that Lead Pastor Andrew Farhat ordered the girl to keep quiet, accused her of lying about being raped, and pressured her to recant her allegations after meeting with her, her father, and Marroquin. The suit, filed under Colorado’s Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, includes claims for negligent hiring and supervision, false imprisonment, and emotional distress against St. John’s Church and School, located on South Franklin Street in Denver.
The girl’s parents allege that church and school leaders became aware of the allegations in August 2022 but failed to report them to outside authorities, forcing the family to go to the police themselves. Colorado mandatory reporting laws require certain professionals, including school employees and clergy, to report suspected child abuse for further investigation, though clergy communications protected under clergy-penitent privilege carry a statutory exception under C.R.S. § 19-3-304(2)(aa).
How the Assault Allegedly Unfolded
The lawsuit alleges Marroquin sexually assaulted the girl in the church balcony. Testimony from a September 2023 preliminary hearing, reported by CBS Colorado, described a Denver police detective saying Marroquin asked the girl to help him untangle cords in the sanctuary balcony before the assault occurred. The girl told two friends about the incident the next day, and afterward went to the school pick-up line as if nothing had happened.
The girl initially denied the allegations and did not come forward immediately, according to the lawsuit, because she believed people would reject her claims. She later became pregnant as a result of the assault and secretly obtained abortion pills. She has been unable to attend school in person since the attack and struggles to trust friends and adults, per the filing described by the same outlet.
Voice Memos and Missed Warning Signs
The lawsuit alleges Marroquin made voice memos in June 2022 referencing a relationship with the 13-year-old girl. St. John’s leaders had hired Marroquin in 2021, and the suit alleges the church failed to properly vet him, including skipping a required background check that would have revealed he lacked legal status to work in the United States. Marroquin was known, according to the complaint, for inappropriate boundaries with women and students, and at least two other girls said he showed them videos and pictures of sexual acts. One of those girls reported the allegations to Farhat, and another girl came forward with allegations in October 2022, the lawsuit states.
Aaron Van Dam, the girl’s father, said in the lawsuit that Farhat conducted no further meaningful investigation after learning of the claims, and instead mused that Marroquin might have assaulted the family’s daughter without taking further action. Van Dam said his daughter was yelled at and called a liar and slanderer by church leadership. He has said the family accepted a criminal plea deal in part to spare their daughter the trauma of testifying, but pursued the civil case seeking accountability for future children who might attend the school.
Arrest, Plea Deal and Deportation
Marroquin was charged with felony sex assault on a child after Denver police issued an arrest warrant in late 2022. As previously reported by CBS News, the girl’s mother, Jessica Van Dam, tracked Marroquin online and identified him playing guitar during a Christmas Eve 2022 livestreamed church service in McKinney, Texas, leading local police there to arrest him.
In April 2025, a Denver District Court judge sentenced Marroquin to four years of sex offender intensive supervised probation after prosecutors dropped the felony sex assault charge in exchange for guilty pleas to felony contributing to the delinquency of a minor and misdemeanor assault. He was required to register as a sex offender and was later deported to Guatemala, his country of citizenship, according to the same reporting.
A Family Uprooted and a Legal Test
The Van Dam family has since moved out of Colorado, and Aaron Van Dam has said the family now finds it difficult to attend church and maintain its faith. The civil suit relies on Colorado’s Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, a law originally enacted in 2021 to allow claims against abusers and institutions accused of shielding them. Its retroactive look-back provision was struck down by the Colorado Supreme Court in June 2023, though prospective lawsuits for more recent abuse claims remain valid under state statute.
Under C.R.S. § 19-3-304, mandatory reporters who willfully fail to report suspected child abuse can face a class 3 misdemeanor charge and civil liability for damages caused by that failure. St. John’s Church, organized in 1879 as a member congregation of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, runs an associated school serving early childhood through 8th grade. Farhat joined the Wash Park campus in 2018 and was named lead pastor over the church and school in 2021, according to church records. The lawsuit’s allegations against him and the institution remain to be tested in civil court.
