Two women have filed separate Cook County lawsuits accusing The Salvation Army and affiliated organizations of leaving Brian Davis in ministry after repeated warnings about his conduct with girls. Davis was a youth pastor at the organization’s Tri City Corps in St. Charles. The suits allege he groomed and sexually abused girls in church youth programs in the late 1990s.
The filings, and a third woman’s account, were described in a press release from Gould Grieco & Hensley, PLLC, Kosnoff Law, PLLC, and Law Offices of Chad A. Bowers, Ltd., and reported by FOX 32 Chicago. FOX said it had asked The Salvation Army for comment and was waiting to hear back.
What The Lawsuits Allege
Kristy Wynveen and Lindsey Gauthier each sued The Salvation Army and affiliated organizations in Cook County. Their lawsuits accuse the organization of failing to act on warnings about Davis.
Wynveen’s lawsuit says the alleged abuse began when she was 13 and continued for about two years. Gauthier’s lawsuit says she was 11 when she began attending the church, and alleges Davis abused her at the church, a community center, and other locations.
Both suits allege church leaders received repeated warnings about Davis and still allowed him to remain in ministry. According to the attorneys’ release, Davis later pleaded guilty to charges related to Wynveen’s abuse. The release does not spell out the charges in the reporting FOX published.
A Guardian Who Allegedly Knew
Anna Kozak alleges Davis abused her as a teenager. According to the attorneys’ release, her guardian was a Salvation Army social services director who knew about the relationship between Kozak and Davis and failed to intervene.
Wynveen, Gauthier, and Kozak say they kept their experiences private for more than two decades. Kozak plans to share her account of the alleged abuse. The three were scheduled to speak at a news conference Wednesday at 10 a.m.
The Lawyers’ Account
Michael Grieco, a founding partner at the law firm representing the women, said The Salvation Army ignored repeated warnings about Davis’s inappropriate conduct with young girls and allowed him to remain in a position to abuse them. He said adults discouraged disclosures and protected the institution.
Grieco also said the organization had a responsibility to protect children and that the women intend to hold it accountable. Those statements are the lawyers’ characterization of the case, not a court finding.
Separate Allegations In Other Cities
The St. Charles filings are not the only lawsuits accusing Salvation Army branches of mishandling warnings. They are separate cases, with separate people and separate allegations.
A lawsuit filed in Louisville alleges the ministry rehired music director Joel Collier a year after another branch fired him for sending graphic sexual messages to a child, NBC News reported. The complaint says the Eastern Territory placed Collier in 2014 on an internal registry of people reasonably suspected of child sexual abuse, and that the Southern Territory knew he had been flagged as a possible danger to children, removed him from the list, and hired him anyway.
Riley Neville alleges Collier groomed and abused her after meeting her at Salvation Army youth camps when she was 14 in 2017. The Louisville complaint also alleges that a pastor raised concerns in 2018 about Collier texting Neville and that no one followed up.
In Charleston, two lawsuits were filed on behalf of two girls who were allegedly molested at a Salvation Army Sunday school, according to The Post and Courier. Those suits accuse managers of doing nothing to prevent a man named Gonzalez from sexually abusing the girls. The organization’s North and South Carolina branch said law enforcement was immediately contacted when abuse of one of the girls came to light, and that Gonzalez was banned.
What Comes Next Locally
In the Cook County cases, the immediate public record is the lawyers’ account of two lawsuits, a guilty plea they attribute to Davis in connection with Wynveen’s abuse, and an organization that had not yet answered FOX’s request for comment. The women were set to speak Wednesday morning.
