A pastor’s daughter reached an undisclosed settlement with Hillsong Church just over three years after she publicly spoke out about how she was indecently assaulted by a married Hillsong Church administrator while she was a student at Hillsong College.
On Monday, the undisclosed settlement was met between Hillsong and Anna Crenshaw, daughter of Victory Church Senior Pastor Ed Crenshaw, in Pennsylvania following a five-day civil trial.
“I’m able to inform the court in principle that the matter has resolved,” Crenshaw’s attorney Kelvin Andrews told the court after an adjournment of the trial which lasted several hours, according to The Australian.
In 2018, then-18-year-old Crenshaw was sexually assaulted by Jason Mays, who was then serving as a Hillsong staff administrator and volunteer singer.
“Jason grabbed me, putting his hand between my legs and his head on my stomach and began kissing my stomach. I felt his arms and hands wrapped around my legs making contact with my inner thigh, butt and crotch,” she wrote in a 2018 statement reviewed by The Christian Post.
Although she reported the matter to Margaret Aghajanian, Hillsong Church’s then head of pastoral care oversight, that Mays — the son of Hillsong’s then head of human resources, John Mays — had assaulted her, her complaint was diminished.
“I felt like I could not say anything about the Jason incident because his friend had said not to, insisting that he was a good guy, and this was not a normal behavior for him. After the incident until now I feel uncomfortable when I come into the same area as him,” Crenshaw said in her statement to Aghajanian.
In 2020, Mays pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was placed on two years’ probation and mandatory counseling.
“The claim against the church relates to how it responded to the report, including managing the plaintiff’s welfare,” Gillian Mahoney, a lawyer for Hillsong Church, told 9 News.
Although Hillsong did not respond to a request for further comment, May’s lawyer Angus Macinniss noted there was a dispute concerning what happened to Crenshaw and the extent of the injuries she suffered.
Macinnis said what Mays did to Crenshaw was a “single, fleeting, spontaneous” moment and that Crenshaw’s initial account of the assault was presented as somewhat “less serious” than it how it’s being presented at the present time.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Julian J. Rossig
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
