Bishop Eddie Long’s Sexual Abuse Accusers to Release Book

Over five years ago, Jamal Parris and Spencer LeGrande broke their silence when it came to the sexual abuse they say they experienced at the hands of Bishop Eddie Long.

LeGrande and Parris were two of four former members of Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., who filed a lawsuit against Long. The lawsuit claimed that once the men reached the age of consent, Long “used monetary funds from the accounts of New Birth and other corporate and nonprofit corporate accounts to entice the young men with cars, clothes, jewelry and electronics.”

All of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said that Long had waited until they were around 14 years old to first approach them as a “father” figure, but that sexual advances started when they were 17.

The lawsuit, which was settled for an undisclosed amount, and allegations of Long’s being gay loomed even at the time of Long’s death Sunday and had many people speculating that it wasn’t cancer that killed Long but AIDS.

In a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, LeGrande and two of the other plaintiffs, Maurice Robinson and Anthony Flagg, alluded to writing a tell-all book about their run-in with Long.

“As much as we’d like to make a statement about the passing of Bishop Eddie Long, we’ve all decided to remain silent, for now,” Long’s accusers said. “Our perspectives will be addressed in our book, Foursaken, which we hope to release soon.”

“We’re all brothers in this,” LeGrande said. 

The men are still looking for a publisher for the book.