Staffer at Bradenton church-based addiction program charged with assaulting resident
A staffer at a Christian-based addiction recovery program in Bradenton has been charged with sexually assaulting a resident in the program.
The two men had just returned from picking up food donations that the Throne of Grace Ministries: The Life Center program receives from a local Publix, the victim Cody Clancey told the Bradenton Herald on Wednesday. His house leader, Christopher Justice, had given him permission to go out and smoke a cigarette before bed although it was just past curfew.
Justice told Clancey to come see him afterward, but was not in his office when he returned, Clancey said. When Clancey knocked on Justice’s bedroom door and was let in, Justice was quiet at first but then put down his cell phone, revealing the pornography he was watching. Justice began to inappropriately touch him, he said.
“That makes me uncomfortable, stop,” Claney said he told Justice.
Justice stopped for a few minutes but then proceeded to assault him again.
“When I told him, ‘Stop, that makes me uncomfortable,’ he looked at me, got frustrated and said, ‘You need to go to bed. Leave my room,’” Clancey said.
Video surveillance captured when Clancey left the room. Ten minutes later, Justice left the room as well, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.
The Bradenton Herald does not normally name the victims of sex-related crimes. Clancey agreed to be named.
Justice was arrested Tuesday and charged with simple battery, being in possession of a controlled substance without a prescription and introducing contraband into a detention center. The drug charges stem from a half-gram rock of crystal methamphetamine found hidden in his sock when he was booked into the Manatee County jail, according to the sheriff’s office.
He was released from the jail on Wednesday on bonds totaling $3,500.
The Life Center is a non-profit run by Throne Of Grace Family Church, 1408 55th Ave. W., Bradenton. The voluntary residential program houses up to 42 men who were previously homeless. The nine to 12-month-long residential recovery program provides “nightly sessions, Bible Study, and counseling, along with a Bible-Based 12 step class, financial management, life skills and relapse prevention,” to provide residents “with the foundation they need to become productive citizens,” their website states.
The program also says it provides residents with all their basic needs, including housing, food and clothing, but residents also have to pay $165 a week in fees, Clancey told the Herald.
Staffers at the Life Center were not permitted to comment on the allegations and a call to the church’s pastor, Stanley Wooten, was not immediately returned for comment.
Justice has been trespassed from the property and his personal belongs were being boxed up and loaded onto a truck to take to him on Wednesday afternoon.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed by the sheriff’s office, Justice initially refused to speak with deputies but when he did agree to speak with them, he provided inconsistent statements.
Clancey has been in the program for seven weeks, signing himself in for help to overcome his addiction to heroin and methamphetamine. Justice had always been nice to him, he said, taking him fishing, helping him pay his fees and even taking him along to the pastor’s home to do yard work, he said.
”He called me his friend and the next thing you know, this happens,” Clancey said.
According to Clancey, Justice completed the program about four to five years ago but chose to remain as a resident. He had the position of house leader, and was eventually taken on as a paid staffer.
Clancey said that when he first approached another staffer about what Justice did to him, that other staffer asked not to be involved. Clancey reported the allegations to the sheriff’s office, and later after charges were brought against Justice, he said he received apologies for what happened and support from everyone at the program.
“Everybody’s on the lookout now that he has bailed out and if they show up, to call the cops,” Clancey said.
