Pastor’s daughter speaks out after being ‘sexually abused by him for years’

A pastor’s daughter thought she had escaped a childhood of sexual abuse by moving away and getting married, only to watch her father break into her home and sodomize her weeks after she had a baby.

Bertheophilus “Judge” Bailey, a respected pastor at St Andrew Christian Church in Tulsa, began abusing Harmony Oates when she was in the sixth grade, court documents allege.

He told his daughter that he was her “boyfriend” and that the little girl would unleash a “total catastrophe for the entire kingdom of God” if she ever revealed what he did to her.

But he was arrested on Wednesday and charged with rape, child sexual abuse, incest, forcible sodomy and burglary, after the 22-year-old decided she had spent too long ‘in the shadows’.

“He left me broken and shattered, a shell of the person I could have been,” she wrote on Facebook. “And yet I refuse to let him define me.”

Bailey, 45, had had lewd assault charges against him dropped by the time he turned his attention to his daughter in 2012.

And in 2013, he admitted a separate charge of child abuse by wound against another of his children.

“At first he prayed for me, but he touched a lot while he was praying,” Oates said kjrh.com.

“I knew how to set a boundary, but if he’s your father and if he’s a pastor and if he has this authority and he has a criminal record, it’s like you say no, but what does your no mean?”

The attacks escalated and Bailey began raping his daughter after she turned 16, as she struggled to reconcile the public image of a loving father with the man who abused her.

“The thing is, as a child I separated my father from who he was, I had to, that’s the only way I survived,” she said.

“I would only call him my best friend to hide the reality of what I was living.”

And she claims her father refused to release his hold on her even after she escaped from the family home.

“In 2021, after (she) moved, got married and had a baby, the defendant entered her residence unannounced, pushed her to the ground and forcibly sodomized her,” the probable cause affidavit reads.

“After that incident, the suspect began coming to (her) home and looking through her windows.”

Oates first began confiding in her husband, then an older brother and finally her mother Aricca before confronting Bailey.

In a series of text messages included in the affidavit, the pastor admitted his guilt and told his accusers, “I am an adulterer. I am a child molester. I’m a rapist’.

In one, he admitted to watching incest porn videos, adding that “seeds of sin are growing.”

He allegedly told them he felt justified in having sex with his daughter because “it was what people do.”

Bailey also allegedly admitted to abusing his daughter in conversations with his therapist and sent his wife an email in which the counselor warned him that he was legally obligated to report the abuse to police.

“In the email chain, the defendant tells the therapist that he understands his legal obligation to report child abuse, but that he felt deceived and thought he could safely disclose this during therapy,” the affidavit said.

Bailey, who describes himself on his LinkedIn profile as a “servant to the community” and a “men’s recovery counselor,” is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and has been senior pastor at St Andrew’s since 2018.

His daughter went to the police in August 2023 and on September 17 she announced her willingness to press charges.

“For too long I have suffered in silence, afraid of the consequences of speaking out against someone with so much influence and power,” she wrote on Facebook.

“The damage he has caused is immeasurable. It has poisoned my relationships, poisoned my mind,” she added.

‘It has filled me with doubts, with fears, with a sense of worthlessness that I am struggling to overcome.

“As a victim of sexual and spiritual abuse by Pastor Bailey for more than a decade, I feel compelled to warn others about his predatory behavior.

“Despite his status as a respected member of the community, it is essential to shed light on his actions to prevent further harm to unsuspecting individuals.”

The next day, the rest of her family released a statement offering her their full support.

“You are a strong, intelligent and talented young woman,” they wrote.

“No one should ever have their trust and safety violated in such a horrific way, especially not by their own father.

“We are all very sorry that this happened to you.”

Bailey resigned from St. Andrew’s on September 21 and has been held in the Tulsa County Jail on $500,000 bond since his arrest on Wednesday.

Another alleged victim of Bailey has since come forward as Oates prepares to face her father in court.

“Think of a 13-year-old girl who gets confused about who her true love is because her dad says, ‘I’m your boyfriend,'” she said.

‘I am learning to trust God more and more and I know that he has me and every other victim.

“He has been with me throughout the journey and I know he will come as a father to me even though my father didn’t.

“When you come out of the darkness, you are a survivor. That’s what I would say.

‘It feels like I’m no longer in the shadows.’