A pastor accused of sexually assaulting three male parishioners told them he needed to “suck” the demons out of their bodies, according to court documents.
Rev Dr William Weaver, a Presbyterian minister working in Linden, New Jersey, is said to have performed sex acts on the men under the guise of exorcising evil spirits.
The 69-year-old ordered his victims to place “angel coins” on their head and balance stones on their hands before he got to work extracting demons through their semen, it is said.
All of them had gone to him for private counselling.
The alleged assaults came to light after the men, as well as one woman, came forward to report Dr Weaver to the church’s governing body.
A subsequent investigation by ecclesiastical authorities found credible evidence of “multiple acts of idolatry and sexual misconduct”.
The four accusers have now filed a civil lawsuit at Middlesex County Superior Court. In addition to Rev Weaver, they are suing the Linden Presbyterian Church where he worked for 39 years and the wider Presbyterian Church authorities.
“I refuse to stay silent any longer,” one wrote in a statement. “I need to make sure that this never happens to anyone else ever again.”
Another added how Dr Weaver had “lifted my head up and looked into my eyes, and said, ‘You don’t have to be afraid any more, I’m your protector now’.” He had then kissed the man.
Audrey Pereira, a representative for the chapter, described Dr Weaver as a “a Jekyll and Hyde” character, according to American news magazine Newsweek.
“He did good on one hand,” she said. “On the other hand, he did this evil.”
The pastor himself renounced the Presbytery on 25 January a day before a church trial was due to start and moved to a gated retirement community in the nearby town of Lakewood.
