Word of Faith Fellowship is a church that has nearly 2,750 members. Its Spindale, North Carolina branch has 750 members. Other branches in based in Ghana and Brazil have approximately 2,000 members. For decades, congregants in the Spindale branch have been subjected to physical and emotional assault. The church subjected some of the members to barbaric methods meant to purify their sins. The methods include being thrown into walls, choked and even in some cases punching.
Authorities have launched investigations into the assault claims at least six times in the past 20 years, and the former congregants were beseeched by their church leaders to give false information for the safety and survival of the sect. An experienced social worker and two assistant district attorneys are among the members of the sect who trained church members and their kids on what to tell the investigators.
Chris Back and Frank Webster are church clergymen and also Assistant District Attorneys who manage criminal cases for three nearby counties. They gave legal advice, helped the church to strategize, and also took part in a mock trial for four churchgoers charged with aggressively pressuring a former member. Webster is the son-in-law of the sect’s leader Jane Whaley.
Back and Webster assisted in deflecting child abuse investigations into the cult by the social services in 2015. They were also in attendance in meetings where Whaley would caution the congregants not to tell the truth about incidents of abuse.
Back and Webster could be disbarred, dismissed or even face ethical charges under the North Carolina law. The law prohibits prosecutors from giving legal advice or from involving themselves in any fashion in outside cases. One could face criminal charges for helping someone avoid prosecution. The two have not yet responded to questions asked about their duties in the sect as they have been very busy to comment, according to their receptionist at the Burke County Courthouse.
Jeffrey Cooper, a former churchgoer, and an attorney said that Brad Greenway the District Attorney at the time disclosed crucial facts on the investigation into the church about a 2012-2013 Rutherford County grand jury that he was spearheading, to him and other attorneys of the church.
Greenway has denied the claims saying that he did not leak “inside information” to the church. However, he agreed that he spoke to Cooper and other lawyers of the church about the investigations but could not recall what exactly they discussed.
There was a mock trial on January 1, 2013, and Cooper was in attendance. Cooper said that the clerics including Whaley witnessed Back during cross-examination, play the prosecutor trying to detect blunders in the defendants. Webster corrected the defendants when they said something that might cause trouble to their case.
Among the accused, three of them were exonerated while one of them had their charges dropped, according to the court records.
Randy Fields, 57, was among those who were exonerated and he also fled the church last year. Fields said, “the purpose of the mock trial was to beat the charges, and it worked.”
According to Chad Cooper, Jeffrey’s brother who is also an attorney, Back and Webster assisted in derailing an investigation by the Rutherford County Department of Social Services. Chad attended a meeting by the church that was convened to sabotage the inquiry. Also in attendance was Lori Cornelius who is an experienced social worker from a county nearby. The social services were investigating complaints of classmates assaulting each other to cast out demons, in a school run by the church. It was alleged that the teachers including Whaley were encouraging the barbarity.
