Dwelling Place Anaheim Lawsuits: Fraud Ruling and Abuse Claims

Dwelling Place Anaheim, the California megachurch formerly known as Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim, has faced two major lawsuits tied to its 2022 breakaway from Vineyard USA. A California appeals court dismissed the first, Wimber v. Scott, in July 2025, ruling that congregants and former board members had no legal standing to challenge pastors Alan and Kathryn Scott’s takeover of roughly $62 million in church assets. A second case, filed in June 2025 by a former parishioner named Isaiah Valdez, accuses the church of concealing years of child sexual abuse by a former youth leader and remains pending.

The Wimber v. Scott Fraud Lawsuit

Nine plaintiffs sued the Scotts and several board members on November 10, 2022, in Orange County Superior Court.¹ They included Carol Wimber-Wong, widow of church founder John Wimber, four former board members (Lance Pittluck, Don Salladin, Joe Gillentine, and James Gillentine), and four congregants. Dwelling Place Anaheim was named as a nominal defendant.²

The complaint raised seven causes of action, including fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of oral contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and a constructive trust claim. At its core was an allegation of bait-and-switch. During his 2018 interview, Alan Scott told the search committee he was “Vineyard through and through” and reportedly promised he “would never take this house out of the Vineyard Movement.” The plaintiffs alleged he had already concluded the opposite months earlier: in May 2017, Scott had told Vineyard USA’s national director that he and Kathryn had “arrived at the painful conclusion that we won’t be part of a local vineyard church in the next part of our journey.”²

The plaintiffs said Scott also learned before being hired that the church held over $55 million in real property and at least $19 million in bank assets, then between 2019 and 2021 reconstituted the board with allies who would not challenge him.² On February 24, 2022, the Scotts told Vineyard USA National Director Jay Pathak they were leaving. By April, the church had been renamed Dwelling Place Anaheim.³

The plaintiffs sought damages, an order compelling the Scotts to keep the church within the denomination, and a trust over the assets in favor of Vineyard USA.² Vineyard USA itself did not join the lawsuit; Pathak said the plaintiffs were acting on their own, and the denomination acknowledged it had no formal mechanism to prevent a congregation from leaving.⁴

Carol Wimber-Wong died on January 3, 2025, while the case was pending.⁵

Why the Appeals Court Dismissed the Case

The trial court sustained the defendants’ demurrers without leave to amend. On July 30, 2025, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 3, affirmed that ruling in an opinion by Justice Maurice Sanchez.²⁶

The court gave several independent reasons the case could not proceed.

On standing, the court found that the congregant plaintiffs were “associate members,” not “statutory members” of the corporation under California’s Nonprofit Religious Corporation law. The church’s bylaws reserved voting rights, records access, and meeting notices for the board and officers alone. Decades of attendance, tithing, and participation did not make someone a corporate member with the right to sue on the church’s behalf. The four former directors on the plaintiff list had left the board before the 2022 disassociation, so they too failed the statutory test for a representative lawsuit.²

On the trust theory, the court rejected the argument that donations from congregants created a trust over church property in favor of the Vineyard movement. Under California Corporations Code Section 9142, assets are impressed with a trust only when specified in writing by the donor or in the organization’s governing documents, and the plaintiffs pointed to no such writing.²

On the fraud and misrepresentation claims, the court held the plaintiffs could not show “justifiable reliance.” Because the church’s bylaws gave the senior pastor “ultimate responsibility” over ecclesiastical matters, including the authority to decide whether to leave a denomination, the court said it was unreasonable for congregants to rely on personal assurances that ran against the governance structure.²

Finally, the court held that even a well-pleaded complaint could not proceed here. Resolving it would require the court to entangle itself in internal religious governance and doctrine, which the First Amendment’s ecclesiastical abstention doctrine forbids.²

The plaintiffs’ advocacy group, SaveVCFAnaheim, said it was weighing an appeal to the California Supreme Court.⁶¹

How the Church’s Governance Structure Decided the Case

The two-tiered membership system at the heart of the dismissal was written into the bylaws. Voting members consisted only of the board of directors and the officers, meaning the president (senior pastor), vice president, and treasurer. Only those people could elect directors, inspect records, or receive board-meeting notices. Everyone else in the congregation was an “associate member,” permitted to attend corporate meetings but without governance rights.²

The senior pastor served as chairman of the board and held “ultimate responsibility” over ecclesiastical matters. The only listed check was a three-quarters supermajority vote of both the board and the congregation to terminate a senior pastor.² According to the plaintiffs, the board that would have to vote had been assembled by Scott himself between 2019 and 2021.

The Valdez Child Sexual Abuse Lawsuit

On June 25, 2025, Isaiah Valdez filed a civil complaint in Orange County Superior Court against Dwelling Place Anaheim, Vineyard USA, former youth leader Ryan Doezie, and unnamed defendants (case number 30-2025-01492689-CU-PO-NJC).⁷

The complaint alleges Doezie repeatedly sexually abused Valdez between 2006 and 2011, when Valdez was between 11 and 16 years old. It describes fondling, forced oral copulation, and penetration, along with grooming tactics that included isolating the victim, giving him gifts, and providing alcohol and pornography.⁷

The lawsuit accuses church leadership of knowing or having reason to know of Doezie’s conduct and failing to act, and alleges the church “actively concealed” the information to protect its reputation and finances. It raises nine causes of action, including negligence, negligent supervision, breach of fiduciary duty, sexual battery, and sexual assault. Valdez is seeking enhanced damages under a California statute that permits up to treble damages when an organization is found to have covered up abuse.⁷

Dwelling Place Anaheim posted a statement acknowledging it “has been made aware of filed civil lawsuits concerning allegations of sexual abuse said to have occurred many years ago, prior to the tenure of our current leadership.” The church said it could not comment on ongoing proceedings, expressed support for law enforcement investigations, and encouraged survivors to come forward.⁸ The case remains pending.

The Separate Todd Hartman Criminal Case

The Valdez suit is not the first abuse case connected to the church. In July 2024, Todd Christian Hartman, a 41-year-old former children’s ministry volunteer at the church when it was still known as Anaheim Vineyard Church, was sentenced to 120 years to life plus four years and four months in prison. He was convicted on nine felony counts, including four counts of lewd acts with a minor under 14, two counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration of a child 10 or younger, two counts of lewd acts on a child 14 or 15, and one count of possession of child pornography.⁹

Hartman first came to police attention in 2015, when Newport Beach investigators traced an IP address that had shared child sexual abuse images to his home. Church leaders had earlier changed his responsibilities after concerns were raised about him repeatedly placing children on his lap. He molested victims he met through the volunteer role, and in 2016 admitted to a parent that he had abused a six-year-old.¹⁰ The Hartman case is a criminal prosecution, not a civil suit against the church, but it is part of the abuse history that surrounds the current Valdez litigation.

Spiritual Abuse Findings From Northern Ireland

Alongside the litigation in California, an independent review commissioned in February 2023 by Causeway Coast Vineyard in Northern Ireland and Vineyard Churches UK and Ireland examined Alan Scott’s 18-year tenure as senior pastor of that church, from 1999 to 2017.¹¹

Conducted by TrustedHR Ltd with 37 respondents, the review identified “themes and repeated patterns of behaviour.”¹¹¹² Alan Scott did not respond to requests to provide his perspective on the findings.¹³

Vineyard USA said the UK findings were consistent with more than a dozen testimonials it had received from people who served under the Scotts in the United States, describing “spiritual abuse, manipulation, purposeful exaggeration, deception, [and] humiliation.”¹⁴ Dwelling Place board members Banning Liebscher and Gregory Scherer dismissed the UK report, saying it relied on anonymous reporting and “speculation rather than investigation,” and stated the board would take no action.¹⁵

The UK findings are not themselves litigation, but they figure into the pattern Vineyard USA and the Wimber plaintiffs described, and they help explain why the July 2025 dismissal left many former congregants looking for another route forward.

1
Christianity Today. Vineyard Anaheim Wimber Scott Lawsuit Dwelling Place
2
Findlaw. Wimber v. Scott, G064170
3
The Christian Post. Vineyard Anaheim Renamed the Dwelling Place After Split
4
Religion News Service. Vineyard USA Founder’s Widow, Board Members Sue Breakaway Anaheim Pastors for Fraud
5
Vineyard USA. Remembering Carol Wimber Wong
6
Premier Christian News. Former Vineyard Church Can’t Be Sued, Court Rules
7
Easton Law Offices. Valdez v. The Dwelling Place of Anaheim Complaint
8
Dwelling Place Anaheim. Safeguarding and Response Statement
9
Orange County District Attorney. Anaheim Children’s Ministry Volunteer Sentenced to More Than 120 Years to Life
10
Los Angeles Times. Anaheim Church Volunteer Sentenced 120 Years in Prison for Molesting Girls
11
Vineyard Churches UK & Ireland. Updates Regarding Alan Scott
12
The Christian Post. Vineyard Report Details Spiritual Abuse Claims Against Alan Scott
13
Causeway Coast Vineyard. CCV Review Report
14
Vineyard USA. Update From VUSA Regarding Vineyard Anaheim
15
Premier Christian News. Alan Scott’s Dwelling Place Responds to Vineyard Report