Following the lead of the Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence, the Texas House unanimously passed a bill on Tuesday to protect child sex abuse survivors from nondisclosure agreements if it is eventually signed into law.
House Bill 748, also known as Trey’s Law and sponsored by Republican State Rep. Jeff Leach, was passed with a vote of 149-0, ABC News affiliate WFAA reported.
“When it comes to sexual abuse and assault, you either stand with victims or you stand with their abusers. Period. There is no middle ground. Today, with a unanimous 149–0 vote in support of Trey’s Law, the Texas House of Representatives made our position clear: We stand firmly with victims,” Leach said. “I look forward to the Texas Senate taking up and passing this bill and the governor signing it and making Trey’s Law the law of our land very soon.”
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If signed into law, HB 748 would void and make unenforceable any NDA that prohibits a party from notifying authorities of an act or sexual abuse committed against a child; or prohibits a party from disclosing to any person doing an investigation of child sex abuse the identity of the offender. It would also take effect on Sept 1 and apply to any NDA entered into before, on or after the effective date.
Last month, Cindy Clemishire, whose story of childhood sexual abuse led to the indictment of Gateway Church founder and former pastor Robert Morris by a multi-county grand jury in Oklahoma on March 12, testified before the committee in support of the bill.
Clemishire alleged last June that Morris, who founded the Southlake, Texas-based Gateway Church in 2000, sexually abused her over multiple years in the 1980s, beginning when she was 12, and ending when she was 17, after she told an adult about the abuse. Morris was a traveling evangelist and married with one child at the time.
Trey’s Law is named in honor of Trey Carlock, who died by suicide just before his 29th birthday in 2019 after signing an NDA to settle a child sex abuse claim against Kanakuk Kamps in Branson, Missouri.
His abuser, Pete Newman, was found guilty of molesting at least 57 victims while he was a counselor at Kanakuk Kamps. Newman was given two life sentences plus 30 years for abusing six boys at the Christian camp and was denied parole last October.
Trey’s older sister, Elizabeth Phillips, also testified before the committee that the restrictive NDA signed to settle his case destroyed him.
“My brother referred to his settlement as blood money as if he had betrayed his own soul to keep Kanakuk secrets, and it killed him,” Phillips said. “So I am here before this committee to ask you to please remember Trey. I’m asking the Texas Legislature to pass Trey’s law this session as an urgent matter of public safety.”
The bill now needs approval by the Texas Senate and to be signed by Gov. Greg Abbott to become law.
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