Former Missionary with Harvest Christian Fellowship Sued for Sexual Abuse

The lawsuit claims Paul Havsgaard abused children at a shelter in Romania.

This article was updated on 9/22/2025 to include a statement by Harvest Christian Fellowship.

A former pastor at a California megachurch has been accused in two lawsuits of sexually abusing and trafficking children.

Harvest Christian Fellowship via Facebook

Paul Havsgaard, a former pastor and missionary at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, CA, is at the center of the accusations. The complaints, alleging that he abused children at a shelter that he ran in Bucharest, Romania were filed by Marian Barbu, age 33, and Mihai-Constantin Petcuin, age 40.

The lawsuits claim that Havsgaard severely abused the two complainants, along with dozens of other children over a period of eight years. The lawsuit also names multiple senior church leaders at Harvest, including well-known evangelist and senior pastor of the church Greg Laurie, claiming that the Harvest leaders failed to prevent the abuse.

Havsgaard is accused of promising street kids food, shelter, and education to lure them into the shelter he ran. Those that he abused are “hurt, angry and still suffering from PTSD and social difficulties,” Jef McAllister, a London-based lawyer with the law firm representing Barbu and Petcu, told NBC News.

McAllister said that the two current lawsuits will not be the only ones. He expects at least 20 more lawsuits to be filed in the coming weeks by victims who were also abused at the shelter.

“Some of them are still illiterate even though they lived in these homes where they were supposed to get an education,” he said. “They have issues with trust. They look after each other.”

“They’ve had a hard slog. They would really like to get some sense that they’ve been heard and that the injustices they’ve suffered are recognized,” McAllister added.

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The alleged abuse ranges from children being tied to radiators to children being made to kneel down on walnut shells. Both plaintiffs allege that children were touched inappropriately, and some of the older boys at the shelter were “pimped out” for sex work at bathhouses or in video chats while Havsgaard took a portion of the money they earned for himself.

The lawsuit claims that Harvest and Laurie were negligent in supervising Havsgaard despite red flags and reports from others that they suspected sex abuse at the shelter.

Further, the plaintiffs allege that Harvest funded Havsgaard to the tune of $17,000 per month and that Havsgaard used some of the Romanian children for fundraising in the U.S.

Harvest Christian Fellowship said that it funded Havsgaard’s initiative for “a period of time,” but added that “most of what is in the lawsuits about our church is absolutely and entirely false; some of it is plainly slanderous,” according to NBC News.

The church claims that it reported the allegations to law enforcement and has tried to engaged with the plaintiffs, but claims they have refused to cooperate with authorities in the United States.

Editor’s Note: After publication of the story, Harvest Christian Fellowship sent the following statement:

“Today an aggressive celebrity attorney representing two adult citizens of an eastern European country filed sensational lawsuits alleging her clients were victims of crimes that they say were perpetrated by a former staff person after he became a full-time foreign missionary in Romania over 20 years ago.

The allegations in the lawsuit shock one’s conscience, as they shocked ours. The allegations are serious and disturbing, but the target here should be the alleged perpetrator, not our church. This misplaced lawsuit wrongly targets Harvest and our pastor as a form of financial extortion. It does not seek the truth nor does it seek to stop the purported wrongdoer.

Instead, Harvest has become the near total focus of this attorney, with ongoing demands for exorbitant sums of money, money we simply don’t have to contribute.  We have attempted in good faith to engage with the lawyer, but the lawsuit represents only the latest demand and, in this case, many tens-of-millions of dollars.

Harvest and its congregation did financially contribute to the Romanian organization for a period of time, as we have also supported hundreds of missionaries throughout the years in various ways. Yet, on countless occasions, the lawsuit’s authors mislabel the very name of the foreign organization to give the misimpression that it was one and the same as Harvest.  It was not.

It is difficult for us to know what may or may not be true about these unconscionable allegations of abuse in Romania, but we do know most of what is in the lawsuits about our church is absolutely and entirely false; some of it is plainly slanderous.

Yet, since Harvest believes there is no greater evil than child abuse, Harvest has engaged in good faith with the representatives of the alleged victims. In response, swiftly after we learned of these allegations, we also took the initiative to report to law enforcement in pursuit of the truth.  Harvest is intent on cooperating with such an investigation. But this celebrity lawyer has refused to cooperate with the authorities. In fact, even in her press release, she does not direct possible informants to the authorities, but rather to herself.

It is telling that, even though they are making criminal allegations against the perpetrator, the alleged victims have refused to even grant voluntary interviews with law enforcement in the United States.

We are saddened that someone would exploit something so evil to intentionally deceive others, but we take comfort in God’s Words. We rest in scripture which teaches us that our Lord loves truth and demands justice. As 1 Peter 2:23 says we “entrust ourselves” to our Lord “who judges justly” and we remember that it was Jesus himself who warned us that people will “falsely say all kinds of evil against us” (Matthew 5:11).

We thank God for courts of law, where we expect to vigorously defend against these claims.

All of this does not diminish our profound concern for those who may have actually been harmed by this individual, and we encourage you if you have ever been a victim of any crime by anyone, to contact your local law enforcement.”

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