David W. George

Ohio Mennonite church member convicted of child sex abuse

David George (b. 1994) pleaded guilty in 2023 to two counts of gross sexual imposition on a child under the age of 13. He was sentenced to five years in prison, followed by five years of supervised probation, and ordered to register as a sex offender for 25 years. At the time of his arrest, George was a member of Living Hope Mennonite Church, in Urbana, Ohio, and was attending United Bethel Mennonite Church (UBMC), in Plain City, Ohio. Both congregations are affiliated with the Biblical Mennonite Alliance (BMA).

The leadership at UBMC engaged Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE) after the public criminal cases of David George and his brother, Paul Edwin George, a former church member, revealed that they had engaged in years of sexual abuse of a younger, female relative. GRACE investigated how UBMC handled those and other allegations of abuse and in August 2024 released the report of their independent investigation.

“David and Paul Edwin George were only convicted of two counts of gross sexual imposition of a child under thirteen years of age, but [the] victim impact statement and the court’s comments (according to witnesses) reflect allegations of much greater crimes, specifically consistent and repeated sexual abuse for almost ten years beginning when [the victim] was approximately 8 or 9 years old. […] According to notes of a meeting with the prosecutor, David and Paul Edwin were not otherwise charged with rape or other crimes because of the prosecutor’s concern over the ability to get a rape indictment from the grand jury, which carries the possibility of life in prison, as the abuse began when the men were at these younger ages.

“GRACE finds [the victim’s] Full Allegation of sexual misconduct by David and Paul Edwin George to be credible and to meet the evidentiary threshold of the GRACE evidentiary standard.”

According to the GRACE report, the victim first reported allegations of sexual abuse in 2016 — to a church ministry unrelated to UBMC, to relatives, and to a woman who apparently reported the allegations to the police. The victim spoke to a detective from Champaign County, Ohio, but she “was not aware of any results from that police investigation.” After the victim again reported the allegations of sexual abuse in 2017 on a different job application for a religious-based organization, the organization contacted Clyde Byler, the pastor of Living Hope Mennonite Church, where David George was a member. In 2017, Byler’s wife then met with the victim, and Byler met with David George, who reportedly characterized the inappropriate touching as “consensual sexual exploration and/or inappropriate touching at a young age.”

Church leaders apparently did not report the allegations to law enforcement, share any information with the congregation, or take any other actions for approximately four years.

Editor’s note: Clyde Byler appears in a leadership role in three cases documented by the GRACE report, where he is referred to as “Key Leader.” GRACE notes that Byler “became an assistant pastor in 1997 and served as the lead pastor of UBMC from 1999 through approximately 2013.” Byler subsequently became the lead pastor at Living Hope Mennonite Church, in Urbana, Ohio.

In his role as lead pastor at UBMC in the early 2000s, Byler reportedly learned of allegations of child sex abuse by Jerod Corbin but did not report to law enforcement or notify the congregation. Similarly, in his role as lead pastor at Living Hope in 2017, Byler reportedly learned of allegations of child sex abuse by David George and Paul Edwin George but did not report to law enforcement or notify the congregation.

GRACE indicates that in May 2021, “The wife of a UBMC elder first learned from [the victim] that David and Paul Edwin had abused [her] for many years as a child.” The GRACE report says that in 2021, when Clyde Byler told another Living Hope church leader about the allegations, the second leader told him to report to the police. In September 2021, the victim “disclosed the Full Allegation to several witnesses and to a Champaign County detective.” After more than a year of further investigation, a Champaign County grand jury indicted David and Paul Edwin George in December 2022 on two counts of gross sexual imposition, and the brothers pleaded guilty to the charges in February 2023.

The GRACE report details multiple UBMC meetings in 2021 and 2022 in which various kinds of information were shared with different groups of people. Regarding a meeting in February 2022: “At least one church member, a female member of the youth group with David at the time, was left confused about the actual allegations and what the church knew and when. She described the announcement as ‘vague’ and left the meeting with ‘more questions than answers.'”

Throughout this time, David continued to be a part of the UBMC youth group and a member of Living Hope. David signed a participation agreement in early 2022 that placed some restrictions on his involvement in church and youth activities, and the GRACE report details several apparent violations of the agreement. According to the report, youth leaders and members expressed ongoing concerns over many months. One couple reportedly declined to become youth leaders in 2022 because of David George’s continued attendance in the youth group.

“In December 2022, one of the female members of the youth group approached leadership and expressed concerns that ‘there has been radio silence’ about David despite the ongoing legal proceedings, that ‘his presence could be very hard for anyone who has ever been abused,’ and ‘we feel uncomfortable having him in the youth group.’ The female youth asked for permission to ‘process it as a group’ and whether it was an option for David to no longer attend youth group. The witness reported that the leadership thanked her for sharing, that they would think about talking to the ministers and elders, and stated something to the effect, ‘We want him to feel comfortable in the group. We don’t want to be gossips. We don’t want to tell other people in the youth group because it’s not our story to tell.’ The witness stated that leadership did not follow up with her after this conversation.

“She stated that she had written a letter expressing her concerns but did not send it because she was afraid of receiving backlash and because she had little hope that it would make a difference because other women had spoken up and it had not mattered.”

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“According to one witness, some women stopped attending youth group and/or church at UBMC because of David George’s presence. One witness described that by 2023, she was feeling complacent and helpless about David George continuing to attend youth group, having no confirmation that David would be ‘prosecuted’ and receiving ‘radio silence from the church for months.’ She also described a sense from UBMC leadership that the women’s safety and security didn’t matter:

“[A]nother sad thing was just this idea that for a girl to be uncomfortable having a known rapist at youth group is not a good enough reason to have him stop coming. The message was, ‘If you feel uncomfortable, that’s just your feelings, and you shouldn’t be selfish and make so that somebody can’t come, because that’s unwelcoming.'”

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“One member of the youth group reported that from May 2022 until the meeting the day after David George was convicted, March 15, 2023, there was no formal communication about the issue from church leadership to the youth group.”

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“One church member stated that the seriousness of [the victim’s] allegations were not communicated to the church until much later and that contributed to their acceptance of David and the church’s response: ‘[I]t was the third meeting till [a UBMC leader] finally said it was rape, and it went on for some years… I think if parents with little children would’ve known at the very beginning how bad it was, they would’ve [said] there is no way that this guy should be here in this church house, or … not with the youth group.”

According to the GRACE report, “At least three members of UBMC leadership wrote letters [to the judge] at David’s request, including a youth leader, the lead pastor […], and an associate pastor,” and approximately twenty members of UBMC attended the sentencing hearing in March 2023.

“One attendee and leader at UBMC confirmed that pretty much, ‘everyone sat on David’s side. Just looking back, that’s just such a terrible witness and just totally not God honoring, and just so many regrets as far as that goes.’ A former UBMC member noted that ‘it was very, very obvious that they were there for him or her, and that was heartbreaking like to see… I thought once people realize what happened, they’re going to rally around this girl, but then I thought, are you kidding me? Like the pastors, you’re not going to rally around her? … And to see her heartbreak through all that was hard.'”