Edinburg, USA — A Hidalgo County jury awarded $500,000 Thursday to the parents of a teenager who was sexually assaulted by a Pharr church pastor.
The teenagers' parents won the award in a lawsuit they filed against Trinity Worship Center. They sued for pain and suffering they said they experienced when their son, then 14, was sexually abused by then-pastor Robert Dale Franklin, 42.
Franklin is in prison for sexually assaulting the boy.
Attorneys said Franklin's background contained multiple warning signs that he was abusing young men in the parishes where he worked. The jury found the church acted negligently in hiring Franklin and in not warning parents who allowed their children to spend time with him unsupervised.
Hector Canales, attorney for the boy's parents, had asked jurors to consider awarding the parents $2 million.
Current Trinity pastor Robert Richardson said after arguments that a million-dollar judgment would be "very damaging" for the church. However, "as a church, we're not going to close. We're going to find a way to worship," he said in Thursday's online edition of The Monitor in McAllen.
The jury awarded $250,000 to the mother for past suffering and $100,000 for future suffering. The father was awarded $100,000 for past suffering and $100,000 for future suffering.
The Associated Press does not identify sexual assault victims.