Three years, two lawsuits and one 100-page court ruling later, disgraced pastor Micahn Carter has lost a defamation case against his former secretary Mary Jones, who accused him of rape.

In a searing judgment, a Washington court of appeals not only threw out Carter’s case but ordered the disgraced pastor to pay Jones’ legal fees.

“Some pastors take advantage of a trusted position to manipulate young women into sexual encounters,” the ruling stated, but the law “protects such a young woman when she rightly informs and educates the public of sexual abuse in a pastoral or church setting.”

Jones made her allegations in a blog post in 2021, recounting a “nonconsensual and horribly traumatic event” from 2019 at the now-defunct Together Church in Yakima, Washington. Carter, who was not named in the blog post, sued for defamation in Alabama and then in Washington state.

A Washington state court of appeals rejected the suit’s claims in a 100-page ruling on Dec. 30. In a unanimous opinion, three judges said that “when reviewing the entirety of the evidence,” Jones cannot be considered guilty of defamation. In fact, “the law considers her statement, because of the unique circumstances, to be true.”

Jones’ attorney, Theo Lesczynski, celebrated the court’s decision.

“We have received a groundbreaking decision that will protect survivors everywhere,” said Lesczynski in a statement to El Informe Roys (TRR). “The opinion advances the law of defamation to ensure that survivors can speak freely about their experiences and bring public attention to these extraordinarily important issues.”

Carter has yet to make a statement on the ruling or the future of his new church The Place, which is set to launch in Indianapolis this spring. His Instagram account has been deleted. 

TRR reached out to William E. Bright, Jr., who represents Carter, for comment but did not hear back before publication.

Carter has until Jan. 19 to file a motion for reconsideration with the Court of Appeals. He has until Jan. 29 to petition for review with the Washington Supreme Court.

“I had nowhere to turn”

The conflict between Carter and Jones began with sexual harassment, according to Jones. She wrote in 2021 that the pastor told her about inappropriate sexual thoughts and began to grab her sexually as she worked at the church.

“I felt ashamed and dirty and confused,” Jones wrote. “His book was soon to be released, and it seemed to me that if God was using him to such big heights, that I must be the problem.”

After multiple incidents of harassment, Jones wrote that Carter raped her behind a closed door during a leadership meeting. She didn’t report it to authorities, a decision that was later used to question her credibility.

“When it came to reporting, that went through the executive pastor, which happened to be (Carter’s) wife,” Jones wrote in her blog post. “I felt hopeless and like I had nowhere to turn.”

Jones told her mother and a therapist about the incident, however, and tried to leave the church quietly.

“We developed a plan for me to be able to quit without throwing the pastor’s life away publicly,” wrote Jones. “I truly wanted his family to be okay.”

Carter has argued Jones lied about rape. According to him, the two had an inappropriate, but consensual, sexual relationship. In a declaración to his church in 2021, Carter called it an “incident.”

“I’m not proud about that moment and even though I made a wrong decision, I still felt the conviction to do the right thing,” he said. “The next morning I went to a doctor and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.”

Carter told the church he was stepping down and would receive treatment at a facility in Washington.

Later, he moved to the Ministerial Restoration Program run by Church of the Highlands (COTH), the flagship church of the Association of Related Churches (ARC).

ARC has been riddled with scandals over the past several years and is known for restoring fallen pastors. COTH pastor and ARC founder, Chris Hodges, said at the time of Carter’s restoration that he was engaged “in about 20 pastoral moral failures or restorations.”

Details of the restoration process remain unclear, but Carter soon began preaching at COTH’s Woodbine Campus. Jones sent a private letter to Hodges telling the pastor that Carter had raped her. When she got no response, Jones published her blog.

Ten days later, Carter was cut loose from COTH. In an official declaración, COTH stated they had not heard the allegations prior to Jones’ letter. However, Jones’ mother, Laurie Jones, told TRR that she had previously reported the rape five days after it occurred in 2019.

Two lawsuits

Carretero sued Jones  in Jefferson County, Alabama, asking for $500,000 in damages.

“Accusing somebody of rape is devastating,” William Bright, Carter’s attorney, dijo at the time. “It’s hard to calculate all that is involved in that type of accusation and what the damages are to come from it.”

The case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. Carter refiled in Yakima County Superior Court in Washington. Claiming she defamed him in the letter and blog post, he said her allegations caused him mental anguish, embarrassment and income. Carter said he lost publishing contracts, speaking engagements and the opportunity to work in ministry.

Over the next two years, Carter and Jones battled in court, arguing for the validity of the case, debating what evidence should be admissible and gathering testimony from former pastors and witnesses at Together Church.

At the end of 2025, the court ruled in Jones favor, writing a 100-page ruling that starts with the dictionary definition of “rape.”

Law protects publicizing church sexual abuse

The court ruled that Jones was not guilty of defamation for several reasons.

One, Jones’ blog post was informative. The court said that “any church would want to know whether a married pastor engaged in sexual intercourse with his assistant on church property.” So, the information could legally be made public for the sake of “common interest.”

Two, according to the court, Carter qualifies as a “limited public figure” as a pastor. That means people are allowed to make comments, even if they’re untrue. What people can’t do legally is be malicious and publish comments with a reckless disregard for the truth. The court found no evidence Jones did this.

The court also found that Jones’ statement of “rape” was her opinion. Plus, there was no evidence “she suffered any doubt as to the truth of her words.”

The three judges also rejected the argument by Carter’s lawyer that because Jones changed her story, she must be lying.

“The change in Mary Jones’ story, from the days after the sexual encounter to when she broadcasted the communications, reflects a common occurrence among women subjected to sexual harassment from an employer,” the court said. “Victims sometimes first blame themselves. Later after therapy, such victims understand the difference in power between the employer and them.”

Jessica Morris is a music periodista, podcaster and author based in Melbourne, Australia.