Sexual assault incidents are severely underreported as a result of women who are too afraid or ashamed to come forth. However, one brave Tulsa woman finally came forth with allegations against a local pastor after 10 years of sex abuse...and her relationship with her alleged attacker is sickening.
In a whistleblowing Facebook post from Sept. 17, Harmony Bailey Oates spoke out for the first time against Bertheophilus Maurice Bailey, north Tulsa’s beloved reverend of St. Andrew Church. Oates said she held her silence in fear of “repercussions of speaking out against someone with such influence and power.”
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Oates initially filed a report with the Tulsa police in August 2023 but decided not to press charges. However, she told police the abuse began 10 years ago when she was just a sixth grader receiving prayer from her father followed by inappropriate touching. She claimed she was raped by the time she was 16.
As an adult, Oates claimed Bailey broke into her home and sodomized her shortly after she gave birth to a child, police said.
“As a victim of sexual and mental abuse at the hands of Pastor Bailey for over a decade, I feel compelled to warn others about his predatory behavior,” her now-deleted Facebook post read. “He took away my innocence, my sense of self, my ability to trust. He left me broken, shattered, a shell of the person I could have been. And yet, I refuse to let him define me.”
On Sept. 21, Bailey resigned from the church. Four days after his resignation, police arrested him and charged him with rape, child sex abuse and incest. Investigators say in messages with Oates, Bailey justified his actions because he watched incest porn videos and believed “it was what people do.”
Another victim of Bailey’s alleged abuse has come forward to the police since Oates’ Facebook post as well, police said. Bailey is being held on a $500,00 bond.
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