A new lawsuit alleges chart-topping gospel singer Donnie McClurkin sexually abused a young male congregant over the course of nearly a decade.
McClurkin, who has three Grammy Awards and numerous No. 1 entries on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums and Gospel Airplay charts, faces sexual assault and sexual battery claims in the Friday (Jan. 2) civil complaint brought by a man named Giuseppe Corletto.
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Corletto says McClurkin assaulted and raped him repeatedly between 2007 and 2015. The lawsuit includes an image of what appears to be a 2013 email from McClurkin, in which he seems to admit to and apologize for the alleged misconduct.
“I am the actual epitome of a desperate dirty ‘old man’…groping a young man who is just looking for a friendship and close plutonic [sic] relationship with someone he looks to for help, guidance and spirituality,” reads the email in the image. “You don’t have that desire for me and I shouldn’t have it for you. I forced myself on you.”
Billboard has not independently verified the authenticity of this email. A lawyer for McClurkin did not immediately return a request for comment on the matter, though he told NBC News that Corletto’s claims are “categorically false” and “contradicted by the real facts.”
“At no time did Pastor McClurkin engage in any form of sexual abuse, assault or sexual coercion of Mr. Corletto,” said McClurkin’s attorney Greg Lisi, as reported by NBC News. “The claims set forth in the lawsuit grossly mischaracterize their interactions, which occurred over a decade, and some accusations over two decades ago.”
The lawsuit alleges Corletto joined McClurkin’s Perfecting Faith Church in Long Island, New York, at the age of 21 in 2003. Corletto says he sought out McClurkin’s guidance because he was struggling with his sexuality, and the pastor had written about “being delivered from homosexuality” in a book two years earlier.
Corletto alleges McClurkin, who was 44 years old at the time, began helping him to “pray the gay away” and eventually hired him as a personal assistant. The two started traveling together on business, and, according to the complaint, McClurkin began sexually assaulting Corletto.
The first alleged incident was in 2007, when Corletto claims McClurkin forced him to have oral and anal sex in a California hotel room. The lawsuit says McClurkin did the same thing over the next two years during trips to Atlantic City, N.J., and Manhattan, as well as at his home on Long Island.
“Throughout this period, plaintiff attempted to quit on multiple occasions,” reads the complaint. “Defendant, however, denied plaintiff’s requests, further coercing him to stay by telling plaintiff that his ‘deliverance’ and ‘purpose’ were tied to defendant.”
Corletto alleges he finally quit working for McClurkin in 2008, but that they remained in each other’s professional circles. He says McClurkin sought him out again in 2012 and raped him in a Florida hotel room, as well as in Boston and Niagara Falls in 2013. The last alleged incident occurred in 2015, when Corletto says McClurkin engaged in “further sexual misconduct” while he was seeking spiritual guidance amid mental health struggles.
“As a result of the foregoing, plaintiff has sustained injury, emotional pain and suffering, physical pain, emotional distress, celibacy, pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life,” reads the lawsuit.
Corletto is now seeking an unspecified amount of financial damages from McClurkin.
