ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — A criminal case against Word of Faith Fellowship leader Brooke Covington ended with a plea agreement Monday instead of a second trial, nearly 13 years after a former church member said he was held down and beaten during a prayer session.
Covington entered Alford guilty pleas in Buncombe County Superior Court to false imprisonment, a lesser offense than the second-degree kidnapping charge she had faced, and simple assault.
Under an Alford plea, a defendant maintains innocence while acknowledging prosecutors have enough evidence to obtain a conviction. Covington has maintained her innocence throughout the case, and her attorney told the court Monday that the plea did not change that.
The judge accepted the pleas and imposed suspended sentences of 45 days for false imprisonment and 30 days for simple assault. Covington was placed on probation for 24 months, with the first 12 months supervised and the remaining 12 months unsupervised.
She was also ordered to complete 30 hours of community service and pay court costs and attorney fees. The case was resolved through a conditional discharge.
Word of Faith Fellowship members filled about two and a half courtroom pews Monday, many dressed in black, red and fuchsia.
Matthew Fenner, whose allegations have been at the center of the case for more than a decade, was also in court.
Fenner told the judge he had waited 13 years for the moment.
The case stems from a January 2013 prayer session at the Word of Faith compound in Spindale.
Fenner joined Word of Faith as a teenager in 2010 with his mother. Prosecutors said he was 19 when about 25 people surrounded him during what the church called a “blasting” session.
According to the state’s account Monday, participants shouted and prayed at Fenner and took turns pushing, grabbing and striking him during a session that lasted more than two hours.
Prosecutors described Covington as an organizer of the session and said she personally pushed Fenner in the chest and participated in questioning him.
Fenner offered a more personal account Monday.
He told the court that participants slapped, choked, punched and hit him while telling him he was disgusting and a pervert because he was gay.
Fenner said he had trusted Covington, who had taken time to listen to him when he felt he had few other people to turn to.
“She took that trust and she spat on that in the name of God,” Fenner said.
He left the church shortly afterward.
Fenner went on to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earn a master’s degree from N.C. State University and graduate from medical school at Ohio State University. Prosecutors told the court he is now a surgical resident in California.
Covington’s attorney presented a sharply different account of the January 2013 prayer session.
He told the judge he had reviewed 78 witness statements and personally interviewed at least 10 people who were there. He said defense witnesses would have testified that there was no slapping, choking, holding Fenner down, grabbing or threatening him.
The attorney said witnesses described the gathering as a prayer session that was no different from others held by the church. He also said a number of witnesses would have testified that they did not know Fenner’s sexual orientation.
There was a “wide chasm” between the two accounts of what happened that night, Covington’s attorney acknowledged.
Covington “has always maintained her innocence and the resolution today doesn’t change that,” he told the court.
Prosecutors said they were prepared to try the case again Monday. Several witnesses who testified during Covington’s first trial in 2017 were in the courtroom and ready to testify.
The state instead agreed to the negotiated resolution, saying Fenner supported the agreement and that it brought certainty and closure to a case that had been pending for years.
Covington was first tried in 2017 on second-degree kidnapping and simple assault charges. That trial ended in a mistrial after the jury foreman brought outside research into deliberations.
The case was later moved out of Rutherford County and eventually assigned to a special prosecutor. The COVID-19 pandemic, changes involving attorneys and prosecutors and other legal disputes contributed to years of delays.
The case also unfolded against years of scrutiny of Word of Faith Fellowship.
The Associated Press published an investigation in 2017 based on interviews with dozens of former members, secretly recorded conversations and hundreds of pages of law enforcement, court and child welfare records.
Former members told the AP that church leaders controlled many aspects of their lives and described being slapped, choked or thrown to the floor during high-intensity prayer sessions.
Church leader Jane Whaley has denied that she or other church leaders abused members. The church has said allegations against it are false, were made by former members seeking to target the church and that it does not condone abuse.
The prosecutor emphasized Monday that Covington’s case was about what the state alleged happened to Fenner, not the religious beliefs of Word of Faith.
“The state prosecuted what was done to Matthew, not what was believed about him,” he told the court.
Fenner said his decision to pursue the case was not solely about what happened to him. He said he also wanted to stand up for others he believes were harmed and for families he said were fractured by the church.
“I pursue justice not just for me but for every child, teenager and adult who is fractured and torn apart from their family,” Fenner said.
At the end of his statement, Fenner thanked the judge and those who had worked on the case.
“This provides so much closure,” he said.