A Manhattan jury has ordered Riverside Church to pay $11.3 million to a man identified in court papers as J.M., finding the Morningside Heights institution reckless and culpable for the sexual abuse he suffered as a 14-year-old member of its famed basketball program in 1978. The verdict includes $7.5 million for past pain and suffering and $3.8 million for future damages, closing out one of more than two dozen abuse cases stemming from the decades-long tenure of former sports director Ernest Lorch.
J.M. testified that Lorch abused him “eight or nine” times during the spring of 1978, including rape and forced oral sex, according to Sportico. He filed suit against Riverside in 2019 after New York passed the Child Victims Act, which opened a two-year window allowing survivors to sue over childhood sexual abuse regardless of how long ago it occurred. As Rolling Stone reports, attorneys for Riverside and church officials did not respond to email requests for comment on the verdict.
At trial, J.M.’s legal team presented testimony from nine other alleged victims in an effort to establish a pattern of abuse within the program, per Sportico’s reporting. Riverside’s attorneys countered that the church had no knowledge of Lorch’s conduct and could not be held responsible for his intentional acts. They also argued that J.M.’s successful career was proof he had overcome the abuse and that he had not proved he suffered from PTSD, the same report notes.
A Storied Basketball Pipeline Turned Legal Reckoning
Lorch ran Riverside’s sports program from 1961 through 2002, and most of the alleged victims came through the church’s teams during that stretch, Sportico reports. The program launched the careers of more than 60 NBA players and hundreds of major college standouts, with Nate Archibald, Chris Mullin, Kenny Smith, Metta World Peace, and Lamar Odom all having played for Lorch’s Hawks. Cam’ron and Ma$e also played for Riverside as teenagers before moving into the music business, the outlet adds.
Lorch, a corporate attorney and executive, died in 2012 at age 79, according to the same Sportico account. Robert Holmes previously said he was sexually abused by Lorch and then paid by him for his silence — allegations that predate the current wave of litigation. J.M. is one of 27 plaintiffs alleging Lorch abused them as children, per Sportico, while the outlet’s separate coverage of the broader litigation cites 26 plaintiffs who have filed suit; the discrepancy between the two counts has not been resolved in available reporting.
Slow-Moving Litigation and Prior Settlements
J.M.’s case marked the second Riverside abuse matter to reach a jury. The first, brought by Daryl Powell, ended in a settlement for an undisclosed amount after an 11-day trial, as reported by the New York Times. That case was the first of more than two dozen suits filed by Lorch’s former players to reach trial, the Times noted. Sportico’s litigation tracking found that since Powell settled, only one additional case has been formally settled, underscoring how slowly the broader docket has moved. Three former Riverside players have died while awaiting their day in court, according to Sportico.
A 2024 court filing reviewed on the New York court system’s website described how a 12-year-old plaintiff joined a youth basketball team founded and operated by the Manhattan church and coached by its deacon, Ernest Lorch — language that echoes the structure plaintiffs have described across multiple lawsuits tied to the program.
Jury’s Verdict Caps a Long Wait for J.M.
The Manhattan jury determined that Riverside Church acted recklessly and bore culpability for what happened to J.M. decades ago, awarding the combined $11.3 million figure after weighing testimony from the plaintiff and the additional alleged victims who took the stand. For a man who has spent decades carrying the abuse quietly, the verdict closes a chapter in litigation that has stretched on for years since the Child Victims Act first made such a lawsuit possible.
