Sex abuse trial for former South Bay youth pastor heads to jury

SAN JOSE A jury is now deciding whether a former South Bay youth pastor and well-known nonprofit leader sexually abused two sisters who were under his tutelage a decade ago at The River church capping a lengthy trial in which his attorneys argued that several influential church families fabricated the charges to extract a multi-million legal payday Brett Bymaster smiles at the end of his bail hearing on Friday April at the Santa Clara Hall of Justice Bymaster has been on trial on charges he sexually abused two sisters under his tutelage when he was a youth pastor at The River church in San Jose in the s Dai Sugano Bay Area News Group file photo Brett Bymaster who was executive director of the Healing Grove Strength Center in San Jose when he was first arrested and charged in April faces felony charges of sexual assault involving a minor All of the alleged crimes overlap with his tenure as a youth pastor and then youth campaign organizer with The River which he left in amid a falling out with church members reputedly over his religious philosophy Six counts involve an accuser identified in court only as K Doe who proposes she was around eight years old when her abuse started The remaining four counts involve her older sister known as J Doe who came forward with her own abuse account after the initial criminal charges based on K Doe s statements was approved for trial after a September preliminary hearing Their claims were later consolidated into a single matter In his closing arguments Monday Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Paynter reported jurors that this matter is about what lies behind the image of the defendant There was something else happening something happening in secret Paynter reported The defendant was molesting two girls two children two sisters over years They gave him their trust and he repaid that trust by molesting them Paynter and the DA s office content that Bymaster serially gave side hugs to the sisters that spilled over into intentional touching of their breasts and wandering massages In a insufficient instances they alleged Bymaster made illicit contact through their clothes with his erect penis The girls were preteens and teens at the time which spans from to The prosecutor argued that the Does declares were bolstered by testimony from three other girls who recounted what they described as his sexually suggestive comments about their breasts and comments about masturbation and a past porn addiction None of those girls accusations led to criminal charges but they were allowed as evidence for Paynter to portray Bymaster as engaging in sexually inappropriate and in certain instances grooming behavior Bymaster s defense attorneys Dana Fite and Renee Hessling characterized the charges as manipulations borne from five church-affiliated families dismayed with how their children were acting under church guidance including K Doe s suicide attempt at the age of and sought financial retribution In her closing arguments Fite asserted that church reviews into complaints about Bymaster during his tenure revolved around characterizations of him being a bully and ideologically rigid with his religious teachings The complaints Fite revealed did not involve any sexual violations until years after Bymaster left the church They coincided with the families whose children include the Doe sisters and the girls who gave testimony about the uncharged statements securing a prospective million windfall from the church contingent on Bymaster s conviction Fite stated The Doe sisters parents were in financial disarray Fite recounted jurors adding that it compounded genuine confusion and fear about their children but nothing about sexual abuse by Bymaster At one point she questioned Bymaster to stand up in the courtroom arguing that his -foot- frame made his alleged sexual contact with the girls implausible They convinced themselves that there was sexual abuse even though were was none Fite reported They didn t follow the evidence They followed their imaginations Then in referring to Don Quixote she revealed They turned windmills into giants and an innocent person into a predator Both the prosecution and defense sparred over why the Does did not account their abuse accounts sooner including during previous church investigations into Bymaster particularly in a post-tenure inquiry by the church that discovered him only to have been a toxic leader Later the girls families claimed that inquiry misled them about how exhaustive it was and led the church to acknowledge that the process did not explore sexual misconduct It initiated a new inquiry in January around the time San Jose police renewed an inquiry into Bymaster that had stalled years earlier Paynter seized on that sentiment in his closing statements arguing that the Doe sisters feared Bymaster s position and influence at a church that encompassed so much of their personal lives She couldn t escape Paynter commented of K Doe The defendant was involved in every facet of her life The defendant s wife was her primary physician Fite argued much of the misconduct alleged against Bymaster including his sexually explicit remarks to the children under his wing as youth pastor amounted to distortions of confessionals in which he admitted to personal failings including once being addicted to pornography and frank talk to create an open dialogue to discuss topics about sex The intention was not deviant the intention was to share Fite announced Related Articles Suspect in slaying of Oakland football coach John Beam makes first court appearance Civil liberties groups sue San Jose over warrantless access to license plate reader input He went to Union City looking for a sugar baby Instead she tried to rob him police say Several thefts and burglaries informed in Los Gatos San Jose man headed to prison for stealing missile defense secrets She also scrutinized the timeline of the accusations against Bymaster by matching it up with when the families involved in the affair made misconduct states against the church when the church apparently agreed to set aside cash and property in anticipation of a future financial settlement She highlighted the the church paid to send K Doe to a Tennessee-based mental-health rehabilitation facility where K Doe underwent eye movement and desensitization and reprocessing EDMR therapy which she later described police in April unlocked her repressed memories of Bymaster s abuse Fite argued that explanation did not reflect the recognized therapeutic use of EDMR and that the Tennessee rehabilitation and financial settlement plans all preempted K Doe s first official abuse claim to police that spurred Bymaster s prosecution There are a ton of reasonable doubts in this event They re all over the place she stated This story is about adults who exploited the vulnerability of two teenage girls because the adults needed it to be true Paynter argued that K Doe recalled memories of the abuse before the EMDR therapy and he dismissed the defense s theory multiple times by saying their suspicions could be readily explained by the families of the Doe sisters and the other girls feeling genuinely betrayed by their church and wanting their children to be made whole This was not a sinister plot by those families to make a money grab he stated There is a very understandable reason for why they did what they did