Lawsuit claims San Jose’s The River church covered up sexual misconduct by youth pastor now charged with abusing girl

Long before Brett Bymaster, a former youth pastor at The River church in San Jose, was charged in April with sexually abusing a girl, church officials were warned of his alleged inappropriate acts toward children and sought to cover them up, a lawsuit by a former church employee claims.

Dana Huang started working as a youth minister at the evangelical church in January 2017, under Bymaster’s supervision, according to her lawsuit filed Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court. Huang claimed in the lawsuit that she was forced to resign because the church failed to respond appropriately to reports from children that Bymaster was committing sexual misconduct.

The River church on Wednesday said, “We respectfully dispute many of the allegations and conclusions contained in the lawsuit, and look forward to the opportunity to defend ourselves in court.”

Bymaster, who was arraigned in April on six felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a girl between 2013 and 2019 when she was 8 to 14 years old, and is free on $50,000 bail, isn’t named as a defendant in the lawsuit. A lawyer for Bymaster in his criminal case, Dana Fite, said claims he engaged in sexual misconduct are false. “The records and evidence in Mr. Bymaster’s criminal case demonstrate a longstanding campaign by a few members of The River church to destroy our client, his career and his reputation.”

Bymaster’s wife, Angela, said Wednesday, “My husband has never been sexually inappropriate with anybody and he is innocent of all of these accusations.”

The alleged victim in the criminal case, now an adult, contacted police earlier this year.

Bymaster’s attorneys in the criminal case have characterized it as part of a string of attempts by the church and some congregants to discredit and embarrass him after previous church probes failed to produce allegations resembling the charges he faces now.

His lawyers also argue that some of the claims against Bymaster are missing important context, including that some of his comments were part of a church-approved curriculum for promoting abstinence from sex and pornography.

The church earlier acknowledged that its initial investigation of abuse claims against Bymaster fell short. Huang’s lawsuit fills in details of what church officials allegedly knew, and when.

In the summer of 2018, on a mission trip, Bymaster took a junior high student aside, accused her of exposing her breasts by wearing a white shirt over a wet bathing suit, and told her she “needed to be careful with what she wore so as not to provide someone an invitation,” the lawsuit alleged. The incident “had a profound and distressing impact” on the girl, who attempted suicide upon returning from the trip, the lawsuit claimed.

The child’s parents reported Bymaster’s conduct to church officials and urged them to fire him, but instead, the officials tasked him with leading suicide-prevention training for young church volunteers, the lawsuit alleged.

Meanwhile, Huang complained to church officials that Bymaster was making inappropriate sexual comments to her, but her concerns were “minimized, invalidated, and not investigated.”

However, Bymaster began receiving reprimands, and after a negative performance review in 2019, he resigned to launch a health clinic, the lawsuit said.

Starting in 2021, Huang began hearing from girls in the church, the lawsuit alleged.

“The female youth members shared incidents portraying a theme that Bymaster had engaged in sexual grooming,” the lawsuit claimed. One girl, with her mother accompanying her, said Bymaster had made her deeply uncomfortable by talking explicitly of sex. Huang shared a recording of the conversation with church officials, and notified Child Protective Services, the lawsuit said.

Another girl told Huang about inappropriate touching by Bymaster, the lawsuit alleged.

In March 2021, Huang told lead pastor Brad Wong, who had been on sabbatical, about reports of “sexual grooming,” by Bymaster, but he “attempted to diminish and dismiss the allegations,” the lawsuit claimed.

Around that time, a girl told Huang she no longer felt safe at church because of Bymaster, and another told her he had “manipulated, groomed, and abused” her by describing, while the two were alone, “graphic sexual acts with this wife.”

Another girl told Huang and another pastor that Bymaster, in a van’s front seat on a trip to a sandwich shop, slapped and squeezed her inner thigh, looked at her and smiled, the lawsuit alleged.

Huang wrote up the girls’ claims and shared the document with Wong and other church officials, and contacted the Concord-based Pacific Southwest Conference church, which oversees The River church and agreed an investigation was necessary, the lawsuit said.

But Huang “felt efforts were being made to protect and validate Bymaster,” and that in informing church members about the investigation, The River church officials avoided mentioning the sexual nature of the misconduct allegations.

In late 2021, a girl recounted Bymaster’s “explicit discussion about sexuality” during sex education for 6th graders, when children were told to shout “penis.”

The River church officials briefed staff on the Bymaster situation and gave them a written script to use with parents and church members.

“The script downplayed the sexual aspect,” suggesting church officials were more concerned with messaging than investigating claims against Bymaster, the lawsuit alleged.

Messages sent to parents contained criticism of a youth pastor’s leadership but did not name him or use the word “sexual,” the lawsuit claimed.

This January, the church announced an independent investigation, and San Jose Police launched their own probe.

In the criminal case, Bymaster’s attorneys have questioned the way the alleged victim’s sexual assault allegations surfaced, which the police report states occurred while she was undergoing eye movement and desensitization and reprocessing (EDMR) therapy. His lawyers contend the therapy is meant to reduce vividness of traumatic memories, not reveal them, making its reported role in the case “highly suspicious and suggestive.”

Huang’s lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.