Child Pornography Allegations
Pastor Stephen foster & Morning star church Leadership have not provided a credible defense of the child pornography found on his phone.
This is problematic, for many reasons.
Below is an excerpt from page 1 of the linked documents (McHenry County Legal Records) to what was found. The excerpt is a Verizon employee testifying to what they saw on the phone.
“...I transferred the information from one of the phones to another and then offered to show the customer that everything had been transferred. As part of this demonstration I showed the female customer the photo gallery. The cover photo of at least one of the galleries showed very young, under ten years old, boys and girls dressed in only underwear; inside one of the galleries I observed what I estimated to be a collection of approximately 200 - 300 images of primarily young boys, which I estimated to be between four years and ten years old, posed nude (with their genitals exposed) on or about a bed in various standing, seated, and laying positions. The bed was white with white sheets and the area around the bed had a white background… the woman indicated the phone was not hers, but was her employer’s.”
According to McHenry County court records, 200-300 images of naked children, ages 4-10, were found on Stephen Foster’s phone. These images portrayed children with exposed genitals, and were stylized in white rooms with white beds and white sheets. With so many images, and of a particular style, it’s hard to imagine that these were accidentally downloaded somehow. There is an implication of intent, of preference. Additionally, the photos were found in a gallery on his phone, again implying that they were not saved there on accident, but stored.
It bears emphasizing that 200 - 300 images is a LOT of images. Even 20 - 30 images would be overwhelming enough to suggest intent, but a number in the hundreds seems astoundingly purposeful.
Foster and church leadership tried to frame it on his personal assistant (referred to hereafter as PA). Aside from the fact that every church member knew Foster’s PA, and had no experience of any kind of behavior or character that would suggest that she would do something so thinkable, framing her that is not a defense. It is pointing fingers, playing the blame game, and not answering any of the sickening questions we all have about why and where and how this could possibly have happened. This is an enormous red flag and Foster has not made himself accountable.
Further, talk to any pastor with real credibility, any CEO for that matter, and ethically, the right thing to do in this situation is to step down until a thorough investigation has been completed. There was no appropriate, ethical response from Foster in this situation. There were no “ministerial ethics.” The only response was denial without corroborating evidence.
The story I personally was given by Foster and church leadership in March, a few days before the Northwest Herald published the article on March 12, 2017, was as follows:
Foster’s PA downloaded the images in December 2016
PA then took the phone to Verizon
PA fled the state shortly after on January 1, 2017
There’s a lot of detail surrounding the above timeline, but that’s the breakdown. PA was never at church because she was constantly assisting Foster (nearly 24/7) or running errands for him, so most regular church members had no idea she was gone. Foster and church leadership had to tell me and a handful of others that she was gone because we had interact with her re: church affairs, but the larger congregation was in the dark.
When I was officially informed on January 2, 2017 that she was gone I found it highly unusual. As with anywhere, people typically didn’t just disappear from MSC, especially someone in her position. When Foster and church leadership explained to me on Friday, March 10 that she had allegedly framed Foster, it was at least an explanation for her disappearance. I didn’t know what to think, but I didn’t yet have any other information from any other source. I was reeling and very unsure of everything I hearing, and the only thing I knew to do was to trust what I was hearing for the time-being. It was difficult information to even begin to know how sift through, practically, emotionally and spiritually. In some ways, I really did freeze. But again, nothing had been published in the newspaper at this point and I wasn’t even aware of any legal documentation at the time. Once the Northwest Herald went public two days later and I read the court records, everything I had been told with fell apart.
According to the legal affidavits, the child pornography images were first seen by Verizon employees in July 2016. I found it strange that PA would put child pornography on Foster’s phone in July and then not leave for 5 months. In the legal affidavits linked to above, the Verizon employees also testify that she didn’t have his passcode. If the screen locked, she literally had to leave the store, go to wherever he was, have him unlock it and come back. It just didn’t add up that she had the kind of access necessary to download that much child pornography unnoticed. Too, according to the Verizon employees, the screen-locking-going-to-find-Foster-unlock-it dance happened on at least one occasion.
Foster and church leadership did not inform the congregation of anything that was going on until Sunday, March 12, the day that the Northwest Herald went public with the story. They were essentially forced to disclose to the congregation of events that had already been going on for months. Again, the question oof ministerial ethics rises right to the top.
In service on Sunday, March 12, the church began again to point fingers, but this time publicly. They eviscerated PA's character to the congregation, attempting to make a case for why she would have reason to frame Foster. It was an excessive campaign, going on for about two hours in front of the people she most loved and served for years. It involved her own husband, who at points joined in Foster’s raised-voice exclamations about her wickedness.
Again, red flags.
Suspiciously, church leaders did not mention at all that the bulk of what was found on his phone was homosexual pornography (click here for details), or anything about the July 2016 timeline. They made it sound very simple. "She did it, she left."
It was a very clean and tidy explanation, but it did not and does not match a word of what is filed with the McHenry County Courthouse. This was the biggest issue I initially could not get past. I couldn't wrap my head around the child pornography piece, I couldn't mentally process it, but the fact that additional pornography was found, and conveniently omitted, it set off every alarm in me.
As a follow up, yes the case was dropped. This does not mean everything is okay. After speaking with law enforcement professionals, I was told that in digital cases law enforcement needs to be able to prove access to prosecute, meaning that they have to be able to prove that the alleged perpetrator was the only person with access to the device or cloud account, etc. This is very difficult to do, and just because they couldn’t do it does not mean that Foster did not do anything illegal. To be clear, it doesn’t mean he did either, but this is a tremendous gray area.
Additionally, what most people in the congregation never knew is that Foster switches out his phones every few months, if not more frequently. Everyone in leadership and on staff knew and knows that -- it's common knowledge. Just because law enforcement found nothing illegal on the phone that was confiscated in February 2017 doe not mean that what Verizon employees saw in July 2016 was fabricated.
The fact that there are no good answers and explanations to these allegations is a problem.