Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of sexual misconduct.
For years, David Wigington has traveled the world raising millions of dollars for Project Rescue, a nonprofit that rescues people exploited by the sex industry.
But on some of those trips, Wigington —Project Rescue director of church relations and lead pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Bloomington, Indiana — may have done the exploiting.
Dozens of texts and emails shared with Roys Report (RR) show that Wigington scheduled appointments with escorts or erotic massage parlors while traveling for ministry. They also show that Wigington subscribed to various accounts on OnlyFans, a platform used mainly for adult content, as well as on pornographic websites.
Wigington and his wife founded Cornerstone, an Assemblies of God (AOG) church, in 1997.
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His association with Project Rescue’s founder began in college. An archived version of the website shows he’s been in leadership since at least 2024.
However, on Sept. 23, Roys Report (RR) reached out to Project Rescue for comment. Soon afterward, the organization’s webpage listing team members, including Wigington, was removed.
Wigington also serves on the boards of Live Dead and Stone Table, missions groups with ties to the Assemblies of God.
Jo Fipps, who found the texts and emails, alerted these organizations to his discovery about Wigington this spring and summer, but says none has publicly admonished nor cut ties with the pastor.
Fipps, a longtime Cornerstone congregant and volunteer who left the church this summer, has been discouraged by the lack of response.
“They still haven’t even started investigating the allegations after over four months,” Fipps said. “He’s marrying people and baptizing people at church, and there’s going to be hundreds if not thousands of people impacted by this. They’re allowing him to hurt more people when these allegations come out.”
Wigington strongly denied the allegations in an email to Roys Report (RR).
“I have engaged the leading defamation lawyer in the state of Indiana, William Riley, and at this time he is considering all legal avenues available to me for the remedy of the defamatory conduct against me referenced in your email,” Wigington wrote. “I categorically deny all such accusations as malicious lies and fabrications. Any further official comments will come from Mr. Riley.”
In response, RR’s attorney, Christine Jones, emailed attorney Riley on Thursday with specific questions about what Wigington disputed in the document of texts and emails compiled by Fipps. The email also requested information providing further context or documentation Wigington would like RR to consider before 5 p.m. Central Time on Friday.
As of time of publication, Wigington’s lawyer has not responded.
RR also reached out to Cornerstone leaders for comment, but did not receive a response.
The evidence
The evidence collected by Fipps includes texts apparently from Wigington, setting up appointments with multiple phone numbers tied to erotic massage parlors and escorts.
For example, the document shows that on April 4, 2024, Wigington sent a text, requesting a massage in the Dallas suburb of Frisco. His calendar shows that he was in the area for a Project Rescue event.
He received a response with an address, two photos of a lingerie-clad woman who would provide the service and various pricing levels, including acronyms for sexual intercourse and multiple orgasms. When asked his nationality and age, Wigington responded that he was white and 51, his age at the time.
A response text provided a room number and instructed Wigington to knock on the door.
Wigington also allegedly visited an erotic massage parlor in Prague this past April. His calendar confirms he was in the city at the time.
In that case, he received a text message from a number that included a photo showing where to enter the building. That number – and photo – appear on the website for Relax Massage Prague, which lists various erotic services available.
In text messages sent in September 2022, Wigington states that he saw an ad on “adult search” and asks about availability for “hooking up” while in St. Louis for a meeting. He agrees to pay $200 an hour.
“I’m through St. Louis a lot for work so maybe you can become my guilty pleasure. ;),” he wrote.
Screenshots of Wigington’s email account show several messages from OnlyFans and registrations for pornographic websites. Emails to Wigington’s account appear to show sexual videos of an OnlyFans model.
Red flags
Fipps became concerned about Wigington’s behavior in the fall of 2021 after the pastor gifted him one of his old laptops. At the time, Fipps was on staff with Chi Alpha, a Cornerstone-supported ministry connecting Christian students at nearby Indiana University.
The laptop hadn’t been fully cleared. And Fipps told RR he discovered a photo of a young woman that had been sent to Wigington at 10 p.m. about a year earlier.
“Something about the photo struck me as odd,” Fipps said. “It seemed somewhat intimate or personal. It seemed like the kind of photo a girl might send a guy at 10 o’clock at night.”
The photo didn’t seem concerning enough to report, but it continued to trouble Fipps. Six months later, while volunteering at an event at the church, Fipps realized Wigington’s iCloud account was logged onto the computer he was using.
Fipps said he came across messages that were “very concerning” and “did not seem like the kind of things that should be on a pastor’s account. They set off some alarm bells.”
Over several years, Fipps accessed Wigington’s computer at the church on several occasions and was shocked by what he saw.
“I was not remotely suspecting or expecting to find the depth of what I found: conversations with dozens of people that appeared to be sex workers talking about sexual services and meeting up all over the country,” he said.
Fipps downloaded files containing concerning content and debated what to do next. In February, he saw that one of Wigington’s close associates, Arkansas pastor Rod Loy, had been accused of sexually abusing a teen over many years. That news motivated Fipps to start sharing the evidence, anonymously at first.
Reports of alleged misconduct ignored
Fipps started with Project Rescue.
“I figured if there’s one organization I can trust to handle this, it’s an organization whose sole purpose is to save women from sex trafficking,” Fipps said. Instead, Project Rescue declined to investigate, according to Fipps.
RR requested comment from the nonprofit but did not receive a statement before time of publication.
Next, Fipps anonymously sent the PDF evidence to the Assemblies of God national and Indiana District office, as well as Live Dead, a global church planting organization founded by Assemblies of God World Mission.
In an email response to Fipps, Live Dead declined to investigate “unverified and anonymous” claims. It added that Wigington “is not in any authority over Live Dead nor are we an authority over him” and urged Fipps to contact Wigington’s church board or district.
Fipps replied that Wigington was on the Live Dead board. Live Dead then claimed it had “immediately forwarded this to the proper authorities for David, the Indiana District Council.”
Live Dead directed RR to the Indiana District for more information about the Wigington allegations.
Fipps — and others familiar with the situation — told RR they believe Live Dead sent Fipps’ evidence directly to Wigington. Live Dead did not respond to RR’s questions about this claim.
The national Assemblies of God organization directed Fipps to the Indiana District office, which is responsible for handling complaints and investigations within the state.
The national office also directed RR to the Indiana District office after RR inquired about the allegations.
“The Indiana District Assemblies of God has been made aware of these allegations and is actively investigating the claims,” Indiana District Superintendent Chad McAtee told RR in an email. “We take allegations of this nature very seriously and are committed to a careful and thorough review before commenting further.”
Fipps later alerted Stone Table, which is led by Wigington’s brother-in-law, Erik Cooper, about the matter during an in-person meeting. Stone Table did not respond to RR’s request for comment.
AOG ‘messed up this investigation’
Initially, Fipps felt the district officials — McAtee, Assistant Superintendent Robby Bradford and Executive Secretary Scott Burr — took the matter seriously.
But in July, they called Fipps for another meeting.
“Chad had a statement prepared that he read to me that basically said because of some family trauma I had experienced, I was unfairly suspicious of David, and I was misinterpreting the things I saw, so they’re closing the investigation,” Fipps told RR.
At the same time, the officials couldn’t “provide a single alternative explanation,” Fipps said. When Fipps asked about specific messages, the officials claimed they weren’t found on Wigington’s computer when it was reviewed by a forensic analyst.
However, they admitted the computer hadn’t been reviewed until a month after Wigington had learned that the messages in question had been discovered, Fipps said. And they reportedly wouldn’t tell him who conducted the review or provide the resulting report.
By the end of the meeting, the officials told Fipps they were concerned about the legality of receiving the files and declined to accept additional evidence he offered to give them. But they reportedly decided to keep the investigation open.
Since then, Fipps has heard little from district officials. He said they’ve declined to accept the raw files he obtained or confirm if the computer Wigington turned over is the same one that contained them.
He’s not the only one concerned about the scope of the investigation. Fipps sent RR an email to Chi Alpha District Director Derek Britt sent to McAtee in July, begging the district to hire an independent investigator to review the evidence.
“I am just trying to do whatever I can to keep us from making a grave, catastrophic error,” Britt stated. “And I don’t know how to say this without it sounding off putting to someone, but I am not speculating. I am certain about this. I know what I am talking about. I have lived it. We are in a very dangerous place right now.”
Britt wrote that a thorough investigation is beneficial to all involved, including Wigington.
“If the evidence is false, David deserves to have that exposed,” Britt wrote. “If it is real, the district needs to know that too. But if no one takes the time to determine that, it’s not just bad for the district, it’s bad for him. He will live with the accusation for the rest of his life. If David gave you his computer because he wants the truth to be known, I would think he would want Jo’s files examined too.”
Britt confirmed the authenticity of his email to McAtee to RR but declined to comment for this story.
Fipps sent the files he collected to Avansic, a digital forensics firm. After reviewing the data, a letter from Avansic stated the files appeared to be “authentic and unaltered.”
Avansic confirmed to RR the authenticity of the letter it sent to Fipps.
Fipps said after months of waiting, he has lost faith in the systems in place to hold Wigington to account.
“Most of these organizations refuse to investigate for themselves,” Fipps said. “Church leaders that I’ve known for over a decade refuse to talk to me or look at the evidence. Everyone is using the district’s ‘investigation’ as a copout, so they don’t have to do the hard thing. But the district cannot be trusted.”
Julie Roys will speak with whistleblower Jo Fipps in a YouTube live stream Monday evening. Details to come.
Ann Marie Shambaugh has reported as a print journalist in multiple states, including currently in Carmel, Indiana.
24 Responses
And, once again, a church denomination fails to take action when actual evidence of misconduct has been produced.
Hot take: s3x addicts will get close to organizations that help people exploited by the industry because their addiction drives them to be adjacent to s3x in any way. Plus of course it helps cover their tracks. Look at Tim Ballard, Apollo Quiboloy, Naasón Joaquín García, etc.
You are absolutely right. I went to the Philippines a few years ago at the invitation of the founder of a large ministry that rescues girls from bars. Overall it was a great experience, he had a team of wonderful staff, and the girls rescued seemed to be doing well. The only problems I noticed were with him, the founder, not the ministry itself. Mainly in that he seemed to need to go out for a full body massage pretty much every day. And there are massage places on almost every corner in the Philippines. I am not implying anything, but it just seemed weird… even if it was a non erotic massage. He also seemed a little too touchy with one of the rescued girls. I am not implying anything, just that I felt strange about it all and I lost some of the trust I had in him and wonder if the rabbit hole goes deeper.
Don’t forget Ravi Zacharias and his “sabbaticals” to Thailand and his investments in Atlanta area massage parlors.
Yes. And we need to look more closely at all of these orgs that have been developed recently. They are exploiting a fascination with this work, and often going about their “work” in an exploitative way, purely for fundraising or reputation burnishing, but adding harm to victims along the way. It’s no wonder that their leadership ends up composed of exploiters as well.
Some spiritual advice with regards to zeal in amending & directing ones life.
“To withdraw oneself forcibly from those vices to which nature is viciously inclined, and to work fervently for those graces which are most needed”. 🤔
Thomas A Kempis
Gosh! Another corrupt, faithless pastor, preaching the word of the lord while obviously not believing a word of it, using his official position—possibly— not merely to gain access to victims, but to distract attention from being one of the people he was warning everyone against?
Or is this one of those cases where “everybody sins”? No, couldn’t be. The company removed him from their website, and the first thing he does is lawyer up and threaten defamation lawsuits. Mark Robinson worked from the same playbook.
Once again, as with the Chi Alpha scandal, the Assemblies of God (AG) is more interested in protecting their brand rather than actually investigating and dealing with the moral filth or perhaps, crimes committed by their clergy and missionaries.
They wash their hands like Pilate, every time.
The butterfly – symbol of the satanic MK-Ultra program. If you don’t know, satan & his followers masquerade as the Christian church all over the world. Notice all the pedo, sex & other crimes we’re seeing in the “church” these days.
Excellent reporting. Very necessary work that TRR does.
What is not necessary is hyperlinking to a website which provides sex services (Relax Massage Prague)
This comment does not need to be publicly posted btw.
As always, it’s the cover-up, not the crime. Operation Rescue and the Assemblies of God have shown themselves to be corrupt, unconcerned with sin but very concerned that people not know of the sin in their organizations. I expect to sometimes find that pastors are dirty sinners and hypocrites. That’s what people are like. What grieves my soul is when their employer churches don’t care about it. Someone who finds rot in a church shouldn’t have to go to the press. But so often the church conceals sin, and only public shame will do anything.
I worked with Jo. His character and courage are unimpeachable. I’m proud to call him a friend, and I’m grateful to Ms. Shambuagh and the Roys Report for your coverage of this issue, particularly since it appears that “leaders” have abdicated their duties.
The only credible alibi might be that Wigington was seeking contact with women for the purpose of presenting them with ways to escape from sex work. But such outreach efforts would be closely monitored by the charitable organization and coordinated with law enforcement agencies. Project Rescue could then explain to journalists and investigators that Wigington’s online searches were specifically designed to identify and help those in need.
No mention of such intentions is made in the above article.
Um, if you had read his texts in the evidence you would not submit this as a possible with what he wrote to the women.
What stands out to me is that in the top image, the total # of emails in the account is 666.
After I read this article, I realized I no longer felt outrage about these kind of stories. I think it’s because my expectations have finally lowered to meet reality. This is the human experience, inside Christianity and outside it: we are driven by psychological forces that often place truth far down the list of priorities and sometimes remove it from the list altogether.
message count in the screenshot is diabolical
We can all count on something: “be sure your sin will find you out.”
It strikes me that ministries to those who have been sexually violated/physically assaulted (part and parcel of forced prostitution) are always going to have a problem differentiating workers who are sheepdogs, who instinctively protect the vulnerable, from those who are wolves, who instinctively assault them.
And to be fair to the accused here, if I were at this ministry and church, I would be asking for an independent IT consultant to work to verify the reality of these records, and would be looking very closely to see whether the emails, social media accounts, and the like are traceable to the accused or not. It would seem like a ton of work to fabricate these things, but there are times when exactly that occurs.
On the good side – he does have an appointment to take in his own dry cleaning everyone Monday; many Pastors would make their wife do this for them.
Other than the “take in dry cleaning” and “Bledsoe Home Group” he sure doesn’t have a lot of meetings on his calendar or take much time for study to prepare his sermons….
I’m so sorry for his wife and kids and friends and family.
What a damning list of evidence in this case and another shameful response by the AoG – AGAIN (Chi Alpha, Bethel, James River Church, etc…)
We see over and over again how boards and administrative personnel wash their hands whenever anything like this happens. It’s shameful.
This is an example, once again, of how the church “leaders” were more interested in protecting their business, I mean “church” and its property and profits, not the actual individuals who attend. More importantly, the attempts to cover this overwhelming evidence if visiting massage parlors that offer extra sexual services, during his appointments. It’s all on activity on the PDF on his laptop, all erotic massage parlors like in Prague for example. The texts are there also. Unfortunately, some of us have seen this before. There was a church in Raleigh, NC that had its doors closed, about 20 years now. The Pastor at that church was affiliated with the AOG also and during that time the congregation was growing the pastor was caught stealing from the church tithes and offerings. Over the years this same “pastor” was stealing large sums of money from the weekly offerings for years to the total tune of $250,000 plus. This church board found out this pastor was stealing and eventually asked this pastor to leave or resign quietly. The worst part is that they never reported this crime and RPD was never contacted. This same man has taken other members with him and started “another” church since then and never faced his crimes of malfeasance and criminal theft.
It’s obvious now that these church “leaders” have no sorrow or remorse about what behavior they are supporting. The AOG should step in and remove this guy immediately because the staff is very corrupt and winking at David’s sexual massage parlor visits. This go beyond knowing someone for a long time but taking action to remove the person that is lying to everyone, plus the congregation and hiding behind their “position.” If they don’t want to admit their behavior, they must step down.