In this episode, Shielagh takes listeners into the courtroom that should have been, explaining how her case against Hyde Park Baptist Church was set to unfold before the church lied to avoid trial. She breaks down what “damages” mean in civil law, how a bifurcated trial works, and what evidence the jury would have heard: testimony from experts, witnesses, and even Jonathan Weaver himself, whose recorded statements revealed deep contradictions and years of deceit.

As the episode unfolds, Shielagh exposes the church’s efforts to suppress key testimony, Dan Ecker's attempt to twist her fear into blame, and the hypocrisy of Pete Nargi who apparently leaked confidential documents while publicly insisting he had nothing to apologize for. Then, just two business days before trial, the church filed a notice of intent to declare bankruptcy, not because they were bankrupt, but to cancel the trial and keep their misconduct from ever being heard in open court.

Out of that betrayal came clarity. When the trial was stolen, Shielagh and her siblings turned loss into action - launching the press conference, the protest, and this podcast itself.

The episode closes with the courthouse steps statement she delivered on the very day the trial should have begun - a declaration that distilled everything this podcast has been building toward: the truth that power tried to silence, the courage to tell it anyway, and the refusal to let lies have the last word.

In this episode of Perverted Justice, Shielagh Clark revisits the tension between truth and image that defined her litigation against Hyde Park Baptist Church. While the church and attorneys treated the case as a tug-of-war over money, (which is the language the law speaks) Shielagh emphasizes that for her, litigation was always about truth—forcing hidden realities into the light so the past could be redeemed.

The episode explores the complexities of the church’s insurance coverage. Shielagh explains how abuse claims spanned multiple policies, why her attorneys considered a bad-faith claim against Church Mutual, and how the revelation that the church had indeed offered the full $300,000 policy limit from the start reshaped the legal strategy. She shares the stress of resisting settlement pressure, including a hospitalization for anxiety, and reflects candidly on her fleeting hope of leveraging a trial judgment to transform the church property into a space of healing for survivors.

From there, the discussion widens to the moral responsibility of church leadership. Shielagh draws on her own experience as a business owner navigating insurance litigation and her study of the epistemic condition in moral philosophy. She explains how concepts of foreseeability in law align with Christian ethics, highlighting the failure of Hyde Park’s board to fulfill their duty of care. She contrasts their immediate decision in 2005 to protect the abuser with severance pay while punishing her with expulsion—an act of twisted moral clarity that revealed a bad theology.

The episode blends personal memories—helping raise the steeple as a child, later imagining its removal as an act of poetic justice—with theological reflection. Shielagh critiques the church’s posture as one that turned a symbol of faith into a gesture of contempt toward “the least of these.” She reminds listeners that both law and faith demand responsibility where ignorance is willful or avoidable, and that Hyde Park’s leaders had every opportunity to know and act differently.

Ultimately, Episode 20 underscores the contrast between legal maneuvering for money and the deeper call to radical honesty, compassion, and accountability.

In this episode, Shielagh Clark closes out the summer of 2022—a season marked by both courageous steps and devastating setbacks. She reflects on the fallout from her attempt to be heard by the church, including the scolding she endured from her own attorney, whose words echoed the very dynamics of control and silencing she thought she had escaped. What was framed as a “confrontation” became another weapon used against her, showing how institutions and even advocates can twist survival into liability.

The episode also explores how the deposition process unexpectedly unearthed proof of the very truth Shielagh had been trying to tell all along, and how another survivor’s story confirmed that she was not alone in being dismissed and shut out by church leaders. Finally, she shares how the passage of New York’s Adult Survivors Act opened a new legal path, merging with her existing case and pushing it closer to trial.

This chapter of Perverted Justice reveals the cost of standing up for oneself when even allies resist—and underscores the persistence of truth, even when institutions try to bury it Time Period Covered: August 2022-January 2023 ASA Complaint will be linked soon