Lawsuit says church ignored warnings before pastor's child rape conviction

Six adult women are accusing an Arkansas church network of ignoring children’s warnings about hidden cameras, drugged drinks and sexual abuse, then keeping Tony Waller in ministry for years while he allegedly groomed, molested and secretly filmed girls.

The civil lawsuit, filed May 20, 2026, in Craighead County Circuit Court, names Refuge Church in Jonesboro, the Arkansas District Council of the Assemblies of God, the national General Council of the Assemblies of God and church insurance companies. The women say the earliest reports reached church leaders in 2000, but the warnings did not stop Waller from remaining in a position that gave him access to girls at the church.

The complaint says a senior pastor briefly suspended Waller in 2004 after girls found a hidden camera pointing into a church bathroom. He was then returned to ministry. The plaintiffs say they also told pastors that Waller had hidden cameras in the bathroom, made them strip naked and perform stretches, and touched their bodies in ways that made them uncomfortable. One plaintiff, Stephanie Davis, said her family went to a senior pastor after Waller drugged and secretly recorded her naked when she was about 12.

The suit says the abuse ended only in 2015, when Waller’s wife went to police after finding images of naked children on his computer. Jonesboro police then investigated and, according to the lawsuit, found more than 400,000 videos and images of child sexual abuse material, along with peepholes and hidden cameras in the girls’ bathroom. Waller pleaded guilty in 2016 to child rape, received a life sentence and was fired from the church after his arrest.

The lawsuit also attacks the denomination’s internal rules, saying the Assemblies of God’s restoration policy at the time emphasized forgiveness and restoration with a “gentle hand,” a standard the women say helped keep Waller in ministry. The denomination later changed its policy in 2021 so pastors who engaged in pedophilia or child sexual abuse are no longer eligible for restoration to ministry, though the lawsuit says a grandfather clause did not apply to ministers restored earlier.

The case lands amid wider scrutiny of the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination. A broader review identified nearly 200 pastors, church employees and volunteer leaders accused of sexual abuse over the past half-century, with more than 475 alleged victims, most of them children. The lawsuit argues that the Waller case was not a lone failure, but part of a larger system that repeatedly chose reputation and restoration over child safety.