Thursday, March 22, 2018

UPDATED::'Fight Church' Pastor Paul Burress Accused of Sexual Abuse, Allegedly Confessed to Swinging, Wife-Swapping Lifestyle


UPDATE:: Former Henrietta pastor pleads guilty to sexual abuse
A former Henrietta pastor known for running a fight club in his church pleaded guilty to sexual abuse charges Wednesday in Henrietta Town Court.

Paul Burress, 43, who was accused of groping three women in his Henrietta home, was charged last fall with four counts of forcible touching, a misdemeanor. On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor, according to the Monroe County District Attorney's Office.

Burress was a charismatic pastor at Victory Church in Henrietta, a large nondenominational church, for a number of years.
UPDATE:: Henrietta 'Fight Church' pastor Paul Burress charged with forcible touching

If one remembers, the original case cited below never came to fruition.  Speculation, Burress and  Dr. Al Ogden demanded silence about these accusations. Threatening to publicize the accusers’ “sins,” revealed to the men during private counseling sessions.  No arrests were ever made at that time; it is unclear if the women dropped the case for lack of evidence or because they wanted to avoid repercussions.

Flash forward,  last Friday morning, Burress was arrested by Monroe County sheriff’s deputies on two counts of forcible touching.
Paul Burress, a charismatic, in-your-face pastor who gained fame for operating a fight club in his Henrietta house of worship, has been accused of forcibly touching two women.

Burress was for years a pastor at Victory Church, a large nondenominational Christian church. The Victory website does not list Burress as being among its leadership team, and the telephone went unanswered there Monday morning.

Burress, 43, is a mixed-martial arts fighter as well as a minister, and received a great deal of publicity when he was featured in Fight Church, a 2014 documentary.

On Friday morning, however, he was arrested by Monroe County sheriff's deputies on two counts of forcible touching, according to Sheriff's Office spokesman Cpl. John Helfer. Helfer verified the person arrested was the minister noted for his "Fight Church" activities.

The charges arose from separate incidents in February, Helfer said. The complainants are adult females.
Popular "Fight Church" pastor Paul Burress and his Victory Church in Rochester, New York, are now at the center of a report alleging a sordid pattern of sexual abuse and a past life of swinging and wife-swapping.

Burress and Victory Church have been receiving a lot of coverage in the press lately for being the focus of "Fight Church," a controversial documentary that examines the use of mixed martial arts in the Christian community.

In response to criticism that mixed martial arts had nothing to do with Christianity, Burress defended it in a CNN op-ed last month.

"Like many competitive sports, mixed martial arts can be considered violent, but it's not hateful or destructive. It teaches us how to contain and control our most violent impulses through strength, discipline and perseverance — none of which are at odds with Christianity," wrote Burress.

According to a report posted on a blog called the Bloody Elbow, however, Burress, who is senior pastor at Victory Church, has not been exercising a lot of control over his sexual urges.

In a letter sent to the leadership team of Victory Church in 2013, an unidentified source complains that he was seduced into administering sensual back-rubs on Paul's wife, Jill, and repeatedly shown explicit video of the pastor having sex with his wife.

'Fight Church' Pastor Paul Burress Accused of Sexual Abuse, Allegedly Confessed to Swinging, Wife-Swapping Lifestyle

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