"11b wHo we ARE WHAT we no oer mvoLveo 55; Give DISCIPLE MAKING CHURCH PLANTING TRAINING RESEARCH ARTS E. CULTURE 3. PLACES Position on the Mark Aderholt Case IMB JULY 24 ENE First let us say that It takes a tremendous amount of courage for any viotim of sexual alouse to some forward. Anne Miller is no exoeption to this. She is oourageous for ooming forward, and we will provide whatever information we can to help her seek justioe. Over the last several days, some have some to question how has handled this oase. While we have shared a great deal of information with members of the media, only a small portion of that information has been shared with the public. In the spirit of transparenov. we would like to olarifv some Kev elements related to this story. Has IMB offered support to Anne Miller? From the very,?r start, has tried to take a position of supporting Anne. Ciur notes of that first conversation with her indicate that she told our counselor that one of our personnel had engaged in a sexual relationship with her when she was a high school teenager, prior to that person coming to work for She also indicated that she was working with a counselor, and that at that time she did not want to make a report to law enforcement. Later during the investigation we initiated, Anne told us a second time that she did not want to make a report to the authorities. When one of our personnel is accused of sexual or phvsical abuse of a child, it is practice to report this matter to the authorities. The most common case we see is where the victim is still a child and the abuse has occurred recently. In those cases, we make a report to the authorities immediatelyr for the safetyr of the child. Anne?s case was different, though. The abuse she described had occurred 1t) vears earlier before the individual accused worked for us. And, most importantlv, Anne was now an adult and was telling us that she did not want to take the case to the authorities. We also understood at the time that she had discussed the issue with people close to her (including two counselors and one of her pastors) and that at the time she was speaking to us, she had chosen not to report the matter to the authorities. In light of these factors and our desire to honor Anne?s expressed desire as an adult to not pursue reporting the matter to the authorities, we did not report the matter to authorities. Over the past it} years, eur eerrespendenee with Anne has been very eerdial. Hewever, mest Anne has expressed in the media that she believes ll'lel eeuld have dene mere te fellew-up with her after the investigatien te previde additienal eare. Dur desire is always te previde eempassienate eare fer the vietim ef abuse. In Anne's ease, after the investigatien ended, Anne thanked us fer eur werk in deing the investigatien and did net express any needs te us fer additienal suppert. We alse knew that she had a eeunseler she was werking with at the time, and that she seemed te have the suppert ef her leeal paster and ehureh. In light ef these faeters, we did net fellew-up further te ask if she was getting the reseurees she needed frem her suppert netwerk. Given what Anne has new shared, we are serry that we did net fellew up with her further at the time te make sure that she did have te the reseurees she needed. Has IMB been werking te eever up this event? Abselutely net! In 200?, we asked Anne en multiple if she wished te file eharges and she said ne te twe different peeple. Anne was net a child, she was a 25-year-eld adult whe was capable ef making that deeisien. We fellewed her wishes and did net repert the events te leeal peliee. Allegatiens that we had a legal ebligatien te repert the matter have been disputed by independent lawyers whe have eemmented en the stery. Given what we have learned frem this esperienee, we are undertaking a eemprehensive review ef all eases in the last 2t] years in whieh ehild abuse has been reperted te ll'lel te ensure that we have reperted the matter te autherities. At this peint, we are net aware ef any ether eases in whieh we did net satisfy any applieable reperting ebligatiens, but if we de diseever any such eases, we will be taking immediate aetien te repert. Did IMB allow Mark Aderholt to resign gracefully? Absolutely not! The recommendation of the investigate team was to terminate lvlark Aderholt. Unfortunately, in 20W, the only group that had that authority was our Trustees. The issue was on the next agenda, but lvlark chose to resign before that meeting, just as he did in South Carolina. It was not our desire to let lvlark resign, but senior leaders did not have the authority to fire him. We changed that policy as a result of that gap. Today Senior leaders can terminate anyone who is accused of sexually assaulting a child. Did IMB encourage Anne to ?Let it go?? While you will see those thee words in an e?mail between Anne and representative, a review of the full context of that email discussion shed a much different light of the meaning of that phrase. We invite everyone to read that email conversation on our website and form their own conclusions. It has never been our intent to encourage Anne not to report this case. This was her story, and she had to the right to share her story when she was ready. Why didn?t report to future employers of Mark Aderholt? This is a complex issue- First recognize that does not have the legal authority to share the details of that investigation with other parties without getting a signed release from Mark Aderholt {excluding law enforcement} which he has declined to provide. Under the law, that can be interpreted as damaging his ability to earn a living. If were to actively engage in proactively sharing this information with other churches or entities, lleB would likely face lawsuits. has been sued for sharing information in other unrelated cases. We believe this is a broken system that needs to be fixed. It is alse impertant te understand that there is ne system er precess within SEC that enables churches te share this type ef infermatien in a cenfidential fashien that deesn?t yielate this law. We are all independent churches and entities which means we den?t haye access te each ether?s files. That is why we structured eur referral precess the way we did. We strengly enceurage these censidering hiring a fermer lMEl empleyee te fermally centact us fer a reference in writing. We will request that the fermer empleyee sign a release. If the indiyidual cheeses net te sign the release, at least the church can talte that infermatien and dig a little deeper te malte a mere infermed decisien- Mark Aderhelt has IMB references en his resume, were they centacted by these that chese to hire Mark after yeur investigation? Accerding te these indiyiduals, they were net centacted by the churches. We hate ne recerd in eur files that shews anyene centacted ll'ylEl fer an efficial reference until earlier this year: and we fellewed eur pelicy in that situatien- Is it pessible they centacted a fermer IMB celleague and get a pesitiye respense?? We are inyestigating that issue new and reminding all ef eur empleyees that enly appreyed representatiyes frem can preyide references en behalf ef the erganizatien. Will IMB share ether cases ef sexual assault with ether churches? llylEl shares the same belief that sexual predaters de net beleng in eur churches. We will gladly werlt with anyene te find better appreaches te address this preblem. There are existing limitatiens under the law that create challenges but werlting tegether we belieye we can eyerceme these ebstacles. Are you cooperating with local authorities? When IMB was contacted by local authorities about this case we indicated to investigators that we would cooperate fully with their investigation and share what information they.r needed for their case- We forwarded that information to them within the time frame provided- Our hearts go out to Anne Miller: and to all of the 1irictims of sexual assault. We have tried to develop policies and procedures that address this terrible problem. We are open to making adjustments to our policies if there are better methods we can use to tackle this problem-