Defamation suit filed after health incident because ‘Enough is enough!’

(RNS) — Dallas megachurch pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes continued to deny claims by two other ministers who have accused him of sexual misconduct, describing the accusers in a newly filed affidavit as “bullies” and himself as the victim of a scheme to “destroy” him.

“In all my years, I have never initiated a lawsuit against anyone,” Jakes said in the eight-page affidavit that was part of a 562-page package of legal documents filed in a Pennsylvania federal court on Friday (Feb. 14). “We filed this lawsuit against individuals who were supposed to be men of God but are clearly not.” Two men, the brothers Duane and Richard Youngblood, allege that Jakes made sexual advances decades ago, when he was pastor of a church in West Virginia.

Jakes’ legal team filed a defamation suit against Duane Youngblood in November, a day after Jakes suffered an unspecified medical incident in front of his congregation attending a Sunday service at The Potter’s House in Dallas.

Jakes claimed the incident, for which he was briefly hospitalized, along with other family health situations, spurred him to take the legal action.

“All of this was happening while I found myself helping my wife recover from knee replacement surgery and while helping my brother navigate kidney failure,” he wrote in the statement filed Friday. “This unwarranted stress brought me to a place of having a health crisis on stage in front of my entire congregation. As a guy who’d had no previous health challenges, this near-death experience was a turning point for me. Enough is enough!”

Friday’s filings came in response to a January motion to dismiss the defamation suit by Duane Youngblood, a Pennsylvania man who made his allegations against Jakes in two 2024 interviews on the “Larry Reid Live” YouTube talk show.

RELATED: Second minister accuses T.D. Jakes of sexual misconduct in defamation suit filing

In his affidavit, Duane Youngblood recalled a long conversation he had with Jakes as a teenager at the private home where the elder minister was staying. “As I prepared to leave, he pulled me close and tried to kiss me,” according to the affidavit. Youngblood said Jakes called him the next morning and “told me he wanted me to be the only person he had a sexual relationship with when he came to town.”

The motion to dismiss Jakes’ suit included a sworn affidavit from Youngblood’s older brother, the Rev. Richard Edwin Youngblood, who testified that he had heard Duane Youngblood describe the alleged misconduct by Jakes. But Richard Youngblood also claimed that Jakes climbed into bed with him on a church business trip.

Richard Youngblood said he first met Jakes around the spring of 1986 and worked as an assistant and praise and worship leader in Jakes’ church before “things started to become weird,” including Jakes discussing oral sex. Later, he said, Jakes rented a hotel room one night for them with two beds.

“That night, while I was laying in my bed, I felt Elder Jakes climb into my bed. He pressed his body against mine and asked, ‘Youngblood, do you feel that?’” reads the statement, signed in December 2024. “He was referencing his erection that he was pressing against my back side.”

Jakes and his legal team responded to the allegations by noting that Duane Youngblood has felony convictions for sexual assault and corruption of minors and said Richard Youngblood’s “story surfaced only after I declined to hire him due to his lack of qualifications.” Jakes said the request from Richard Youngblood occurred about 10 years ago.

In a second affidavit in Friday’s filings, Jakes’ son Jermaine spoke in support of his father. In Duane Youngblood’s filings, the younger Jakes was accused of sending the accuser a “message perceived as carrying a direct threat of harm.”

But Jermaine Jakes said that after he saw an ad about the then-pending second YouTube interview with Reid, he reached out to Duane Youngblood via text to warn him about Reid, whom Jakes’ son did not consider to be trustworthy.

“There was no reason for me to say anything that I intended or meant to be threatening,” Jermaine Jakes wrote in the document filed Friday. “Duane responded to my message practically immediately stating that he received the message and ‘it was noted.’”

Larry Reid, left, interviews Duane Youngblood on the “Larry Reid Live” YouTube talk show on Nov. 3, 2024. (Video screen grab)

Duane Youngblood, who described T.D. Jakes as a groomer, alleged that Jakes had offered to take care of the then-teenager financially “for life,” but Jakes and his team maintained that at the time of the alleged incident, the elder minister could not have afforded to make that offer. “During that period, I was barely keeping my own family out of poverty,” Jakes wrote. “I was not the ‘Bishop TD Jakes’ of today. I was a pastor with no substantial following, and no financial resources.”

The court filings include as exhibits two images that Jakes’ team said depict the location of his storefront church and house at the time and that the team says show he was a “small-town preacher.” Jakes said it was only an introduction to evangelist Carlton Pearson at a 1992 evangelical conference, followed the next year by his preaching a “Woman Thou Art Loosed” sermon, that led to his being known nationwide.

The filings also include a Nov. 15 letter in which Duane Youngblood’s lawyer, Tyrone Blackburn, requested an “opening settlement demand of six million dollars” to resolve Youngblood’s claims against Jakes.

They also note that Duane Youngblood has created a website where Youngblood may be booked as a speaker, coach or to present webinars on overcoming trauma. Jakes also claims Youngblood has plans for a forthcoming book that is, as Jakes stated, a “‘tell-all’ about me.”

“I suspect a larger network is involved in this scheme, all anticipating a share of this attempted ‘money grab,’” Jakes, whose entrepreneurial pursuits include movie production and real estate development, wrote in the affidavit. “This entire smear campaign began shortly after the public announcement of a commitment from Wells Fargo of up to $1 billion for community redevelopment.”

Jakes’ representatives declined to respond to questions from RNS about the legal filings, citing it as “an ongoing legal matter,” but said he is continuing to recuperate from the medical incident.

“He remains on the path to recovery, strengthened by his faith, his purpose and the prayers of so many who continue to lift him up,” said Jordan Hora, executive director of PR and communications for the T.D. Jakes Group, T.D. Jakes Ministries and The Potter’s House. “With his doctors’ guidance, he was cleared to begin very slowly to minister during a recent Wednesday Night Bible School class on Feb. 12, and we are grateful for each step forward.”

RNS asked about Jakes’ diagnosis and prognosis after the medical incident and Hora responded: “We are focused on his continued healing and are not able to share additional details about his medical journey at this time.”

RELATED: T.D. Jakes files suit after medical incident, accusing minister of false abuse claims