Greg Laurie Lawsuit: Romania Abuse and Cover-Up Allegations

Greg Laurie, founder and senior pastor of the Southern California megachurch Harvest Christian Fellowship, is a defendant in a consolidated federal lawsuit alleging he and his church funded and then covered up decades of child sexual abuse and trafficking at Harvest-financed orphanages in Romania. The March 2026 complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, brings together claims from 22 Romanian plaintiffs who say they were abused as children by former Harvest pastor Paul Havsgaard between 1998 and 2008, and adds separate allegations that Harvest paid another top pastor $4 million to sign a nondisclosure agreement over sexual misconduct.¹²

What the Plaintiffs Say Happened in Romania

In 1998, Harvest sent Havsgaard, described in one report as Laurie’s “No. 2 man,” to Bucharest to run a network of children’s homes called Harvest Homes.³ The homes took in street children, some as young as four, with promises of food, shelter, and education.⁴ Harvest deposited roughly $17,000 a month into Havsgaard’s personal bank account to fund the operation.⁵

The 22 plaintiffs are Romanian men and women who lived in the homes as children. They allege Havsgaard sexually assaulted residents, subjected them to severe physical punishments including forcing children to kneel on walnut shells and tying them to beds or radiators, and told them his actions were divinely sanctioned.⁶ The complaint alleges he trafficked older boys for sex work and kept a portion of their earnings.⁷ Plaintiff Alexandra-Elena Langa alleges Havsgaard stripped her, spanked her while touching himself, and created a “sexual environment” that kept her in constant fear.³ The complaint calls the conditions abusive on an “industrial scale.”⁴

What Laurie and Harvest Leadership Allegedly Knew

The lawsuit’s theory of liability against Laurie personally turns on what he was told and when. According to the complaint, even before Havsgaard left for Romania in 1998, his own sister reported to a Harvest lay leader that he had abused his younger sisters, and that report was passed up to church leadership.¹

Warnings continued once the homes were operating. The complaint says the Harvest Homes cook raised suspicions about Havsgaard’s behavior in 1999 with then-missions pastor Richard Schutte, who relayed them to leadership, and that no action followed.¹ In 2004, Harvest commissioned an internal investigation by missionary Steve Quarles. According to the lawsuit, Quarles found that Havsgaard had been taking boys to hotels and buying them alcohol, that at least $5,000 of the $17,000 monthly budget was being spent without receipts, and recommended immediate removal, calling Havsgaard an “embarrassment to every single missionary.”⁸ Schutte allegedly refused, telling Quarles: “We can’t not have him be part of things.”

Rather than remove Havsgaard, the lawsuit alleges, Laurie began gradually cutting funding starting around 2004. The homes stayed open for four more years, closing in 2008 when Havsgaard returned to California with roughly $200,000 in severance from Harvest. Plaintiffs’ attorneys say Laurie was still publicly praising Havsgaard as late as 2009, comparing his work to that of Moses.⁴ The complaint also alleges Schutte was “quietly fired” in 2018 as a “fall guy” for the Romania scandal, and that videos of Havsgaard were scrubbed from church archives around the same time.¹

The Broader Cover-Up Allegations

The March 2026 consolidated complaint reaches beyond Romania. It accuses Harvest of running what plaintiffs call a “cover-up machine” involving multiple pastors.⁹

The lawsuit alleges Jeff Lasseigne, a former administrative pastor at Harvest since 1989 who oversaw worship and pastoral care, had sexual relationships with a church volunteer and a church employee. Staff members raised concerns with Laurie, according to the complaint, but no discipline followed. When Lasseigne was fired in early 2021, the church allegedly paid him $4 million in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement and told congregants and staff nothing about the reason for his departure.²

The complaint names another former administrative pastor, Brad Ormonde, who allegedly carried on a multi-year affair with a church secretary who also served as Laurie’s personal secretary. Ormonde resigned in December 2022 with no public explanation.² In both departures, plaintiffs allege, Harvest scrubbed online bios, teaching videos, and photos, and warned staff not to discuss the exits, telling those who asked they were “gossiping.”⁹ The complaint says Harvest used charitable donations to buy silence without disclosing the arrangements to donors.

The Legal Claims

The consolidated complaint names four defendants: Harvest Christian Fellowship, Greg Laurie, Richard Schutte, and Paul Havsgaard.¹ Plaintiffs are represented by the firm McAllister Olivarius, and the claims include:

Negligence and negligent supervision, on the theory that Laurie held “unquestioned authority” over Harvest policies and had both the power and the obligation to remove Havsgaard.
Civil conspiracy to commit intentional infliction of emotional distress and sexual battery.
Sex trafficking claims brought under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
Substantial assistance, alleging Laurie and Schutte knowingly aided Havsgaard’s abuse by keeping him in place and continuing to fund him after receiving reports.

To get past the age of the underlying events, plaintiffs invoke equitable tolling, arguing the defendants concealed the abuse through threats, coercion, and fraud. They also argue California law governs because the key decisions and omissions came from the church’s California headquarters. The complaint frames the connection between Harvest and Havsgaard’s Romanian nonprofit, Actively Restoring Kids International (ARK), as tight: shared employees and management, joint California fundraising, and Harvest “effectively controlling” ARK.¹⁰

How Harvest and Havsgaard Are Responding

Harvest has denied responsibility and called the lawsuits “a form of financial extortion.” In a public statement the church said the allegations “shock one’s conscience, as they shocked ours,” but argued the suits “wrongly target Harvest and our pastor” rather than the alleged perpetrator.¹¹ The church’s position is that the Romanian orphanages were operated independently by Havsgaard through his own nonprofit and that financial support did not equate to operational oversight.⁸

Harvest is represented by Howard M. Privette of Snell & Wilmer.¹² Its defense strategy has centered on moving the case out of U.S. court. Harvest’s attorneys argue that because all 22 plaintiffs are Romanian citizens and the alleged abuse occurred in Romania at least 18 years ago, the case should be heard in Romanian courts under forum non conveniens and international comity. Harvest has also opened civil proceedings in a Bucharest court to test whether the claims are barred by the Romanian statute of limitations.¹³

Havsgaard, now 76 and living on Social Security and a military pension, has denied everything, calling the allegations “blatant, ugly lies” manufactured for a payout. In a January 2026 letter to the court he said the children were free to leave the homes at any time and that nothing abusive occurred, and he accused the plaintiffs’ attorney of using “fraudulent statements” and money to influence witnesses.¹³ In June 2026 he filed a formal motion asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice.¹⁴

Where the Case Stands

The first two lawsuits were filed September 16, 2025, by Marian Barbu and Mihai-Constantin Petcu in the Central District of California, followed by additional suits through the fall of 2025 and seven more filed by women in January 2026.¹⁵¹¹ On February 3, 2026, U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes ordered the individual cases consolidated, with Barbu as lead plaintiff.¹³ Plaintiffs filed a 201-page consolidated amended complaint on March 6, 2026, incorporating 23 lawsuits and adding the Lasseigne and Ormonde allegations.²

As of mid-2026, the court has stayed the defendants’ deadline to file responsive pleadings pending Harvest’s forum non conveniens motion. No trial date has been set, and the court has issued no rulings on the merits.¹⁵

1
MinistryWatch. Consolidated Abuse Lawsuit Against Harvest Christian Fellowship and Greg Laurie Contains New Allegations
2
The Roys Report. Lawsuit: Greg Laurie’s Church Covered Up Sexual Misconduct of Top Pastors, Paying One $4 Million to Sign NDA
3
The Roys Report. Paul Havsgaard, a Former Pastor at Greg Laurie’s Church, Needs Donations to Fight Lawsuits
4
McAllister Olivarius. Romanian Survivors File Lawsuits Against California Megachurch and Pastor Greg Laurie
5
NBC News. Lawsuits Accuse Former California Megachurch Pastor of Child Sex Abuse in Bucharest
6
The Press-Enterprise. Lawsuits Accuse Former Pastor of Megachurch in Riverside of Child Sex Abuse in Bucharest
7
Spectrum News. Former California Megachurch Pastor Lawsuits Bucharest Child Sex Abuse
8
Christianity Today. Greg Laurie Calvary Chapel Negligence Abuse Lawsuit Romania
9
Church Leaders. Greg Laurie’s Harvest Christian Fellowship Accused of Being a Cover-Up Machine
10
McAllister Olivarius. Nitu v. Harvest Christian Fellowship Complaint
11
MinistryWatch. More Lawsuits Filed Against Greg Laurie and Harvest Christian Fellowship
12
Christian Post. Harvest Says Lawyer for Accusers Has Confidential Church Files
13
Christian Post. Harvest Christian Fellowship Seeks to Dismiss Sex Abuse Lawsuits
14
Christian Post. Paul Havsgaard Asks Court to Dismiss Abuse Lawsuit
15
Justia. Barbu v. Harvest Christian Fellowship Docket