Duggars be damned: It turns out presidential Easter ham Mike Huckabee has another alleged child molester in his coterie. A prolific co-author of Huck’s and other Christian moralists’ books left his church and escaped prosecution when the statute of limitations ran out on his alleged sexual assaults of a young girl.

That’s the skinny on writer John Perry according to Buzzfeed News, which broke the story this morning:

Perry co-wrote Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That’s Bringing Common Sense Back to America about Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign. He also did research and writing for Huckabee’s 2007 book Character Is the Issue, a memoir of his early time as governor. Perry also co-wrote So Help Me God, Moore’s autobiographical account of fighting to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments at Alabama’s Supreme Court.

That’s in addition to his work for leading conservative Bible-thumpers Richard Land, James T. Draper, Frank Page, and John T. MacArthur. Somewhere in there, Perry found time to alienate his wife by “admitted sexual abuse” of a girl repeatedly between the ages of 11 and 14—according to his ex-spouse and police, who concluded in 2012 that “the allegations of sexual battery were sustained” but too old to prosecute.

The victim, who first disclosed the abuse “to non-law enforcement” when she was 18, asked her confessors not to inform police, and they didn’t.

According to Buzzfeed, those non-law enforcement confessors included members of Perry’s church. Another member of that religious flock, Austin Davis, now alleges in a lawsuit that the church tried to keep Perry’s “numerous” instances of minor sex abuse hush-hush:

In Davis’s court case, he presents what he alleges are minutes from Covenant Presbyterian Church meetings that show Perry resigning from the church’s diaconate in 2008, and minutes from 2010 showing Perry was excommunicated from the church because he “has confessed to committing heinous and repetitive sin […] and has not shown evidence of repentance.” The minutes appear to have been introduced as evidence in one of Davis’ lawsuits against the church. The church does not appear to have objected to the introduction of the minutes or contested their authenticity.

Huckabee—an evangelical who has made conservative theocratic values a centerpiece of his presidential campaigns and broadcasting career—has doubled down recently in his embrace of reality TV star, family-values activist, and confirmed child-molester Josh Duggar, even sharing a damage control specialist with Duggar and his family.

Huckabee did not respond to Buzzfeed’s requests for a comment, but he did recently make time to ridicule trans people, saying in a speech that he wished he’d said he was transgender as a boy so he could take showers with girls.

[Photo credit: AP Images]

Contact the author at adam@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: FD97 D50A DE57 3943 4534 1A49 FA8B 74B4 A7A0 07BE