Years of ignored warnings freed a children’s pastor to sexually abuse girls, lawsuit says
A lawsuit has been filed against the Assemblies of God, alleging that church leaders ignored multiple warnings about a children's pastor who sexually abused girls for years. The complaint details how Tony Waller was able to continue his abuse despite numerous reports from children about inappropriate behavior and hidden cameras. Survivors are seeking accountability from church officials for their failure to protect vulnerable children.
- ▪The lawsuit was filed by six women in Craighead County Circuit Court.
- ▪Tony Waller was convicted of raping two girls and sentenced to life in prison in 2016.
- ▪Church leaders allegedly dismissed reports of Waller's abuses for over 15 years.
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| Original publisher | NBC News — Top |
| Canonical URL | https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/arkansas-pastor-tony-waller-abused-girls-assemblies-god-church-lawsuit-rcna346310 |
| Publication time | Fri, 22 May 2026 16:32:33 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-22T16:42:02.710Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-22T16:42:02.710Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | p6Q5r2Ro3QV4 |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Pastors and PreyYears of ignored warnings freed a children’s pastor to sexually abuse girls, lawsuit saysLong before an Assemblies of God pastor was convicted of rape, children told church leaders about hidden cameras, drugged drinks and abuse, a new lawsuit says.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Add NBC News to GoogleHow Assemblies of God churches allegedly shielded predators as they abused children04:47Get more newsLiveonShareAdd NBC News to GoogleMay 22, 2026, 12:32 PM EDTBy Mike HixenbaughThis article is part of “Pastors and Prey,” a series investigating sex abuse allegations in the Assemblies of God.
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