Lawsuit Cites the Quiet Departure of 2 Former Harvest Christian Fellowship Pastors
New to the consolidated complaint are references to two former pastors at Harvest Christian Fellowship—both of whom reportedly engaged in sexual misconduct with female staff members. The examples, according to the lawsuit, show a broader pattern of covering up wrongdoing to protect the church’s reputation and brand.
In a section titled “Harvest Riverside Covers Up Pastors’ Extramarital Affairs,” the complaint alleges that the church quietly parted ways with Jeff Lasseigne in 2021 and with Brad Ormonde Sr. in 2022.
Lasseigne, who began serving at Harvest in 1989, eventually oversaw worship and numerous ministries at the California megachurch. According to the lawsuit, “During a period when his wife was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Lasseigne engaged in extramarital affairs with multiple women at the same time including church employees, regularly using a janitor’s closet in the area reserved for pastoral leadership.”
Although other Harvest staffers complained to Pastor Greg Laurie, the lawsuit states, Lasseigne wasn’t disciplined. When he was eventually fired in 2021, Harvest reportedly gave Lasseigne a severance package worth $4 million, the suit stated, but provided staff and church members “no explanation” about his sudden departure. Lasseigne currently teaches Bible classes at a Southern Baptist church in Franklin, Tennessee.
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Brad Ormonde Sr., who joined Harvest in 2002, reportedly led a “Men of Valor” group there and counseled men who had been unfaithful to their wives. Yet according to the lawsuit, he “had a multi-year extramarital affair with [Greg] Laurie’s personal secretary.” Ormonde resigned from Harvest in 2022, and his wife filed for divorce soon afterward.
Drawing connections to Harvest’s handling of the Paul Havsgaard situation, the lawsuit noted that with all three men, the church “did not disclose to donors that their charitable contributions were being spent to cover up…misconduct” but instead “erased mentions of [the pastors’] long history with the church from its website” and archives.
To show what it describes as a pattern of institutional coverup, the lawsuit references abuse allegations connected to other Harvest programs and events. It also alleges that Harvest quietly fired former missions pastor Richard Schutte in 2018, making him a “fall guy” for the Romanian abuse scandal, which it tried to keep out of the headlines.
