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This morning, I had the opportunity to do something I never thought I would be able to do, emotionally or logistically: tell Mark Aderholt how the sexual abuse he inflicted on me as a teenager affected me, and that I forgave him. I did both at his hearing today at the Tarrant County Courthouse.

Sarah Smith, who first shared my story last year after Mr. Aderholt’s arrest, wrote about the hearing here. She has become such a trusted friend in the last year. Just a day after coming back from an overseas (much needed) vacation, she traveled all the way up to Dallas to be present. The gallery was full of supporters: friends from twenty years ago and friends I met just today who have been fiercely encouraging over the last year. My family was there, and Tim stood by me as I read the statement. I am eternally grateful for everyone who was there in person or in spirit.

I wanted to touch on a couple of things before you read the statement:

• Mr. Aderholt was charged with a fifth crime: assault causing bodily injury. This is the crime he pleaded guilty to, and it’s a misdemeanor. I knew of this plea deal ahead of time, and knew of the sentence it likely carried. The judge did hand down the maximum sentence for this crime, but many people have expressed how the punishment is not fitting of the crime. He will not be on any registries and as long as he keeps the terms of his probation, there will actually be no record of his crimes on a background check.
  
  Over the last year, I have learned how unspeakably complicated the criminal justice system is. So many variables go into each and every case. While I think we all can agree that Mr. Aderholt is not facing the criminal penalty he should be, the DA’s office asked for my input and wishes during plea negotiations. This included taking into consideration the emotionally charged prospect of a jury trial, facing a relentless and brutal cross-examination by his defense attorney, the impact of a trial on my family and a potential verdict of not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I fully trust the prosecuting attorney and the final outcome. For what it’s worth, I do not believe this will be the last time Mr. Aderholt is in a courtroom. I know the court of public opinion (and media) are appropriately convicting of his actual offenses, should he apply for a job in ministry and the organization does a quick internet search.

• You will notice in my statement a very important paragraph and relatively new development: I am not the only woman Mr. Aderholt has taken advantage of sexually. While these stories are not mine to tell, they are first-hand and disturbing. They have been authenticated by an independent party. The other women helped me write this and it was with their approval that I could share this in court. They can and should (and will) keep full agency of their stories. I believe there are even more people out there who have been affected by Mr. Aderholt’s manipulation.

Others have come forward in the past few days and shared that you used their vulnerability for your sexual gratification, at times even doing so after you were told to stop.

-Anne Marie Miller, Victim Impact Statement for Mark Aderholt

• When I read the statement from Mr. Aderholt’s attorney, Justin Sparks, I literally almost threw up in my mouth. This does not reflect the plea agreement in the courtroom (the judge said something to the effect of “are you pleading guilty to this charge because you are guilty of this charge?” to which Mr. Aderholt agreed.) To hear that he still maintains his innocence and he agreed to this only for the sake of the lesser punishment and for his own “closure” is reprehensible and indicative of how truly deceived this man is.
  
  Mr. Sparks’ statement is a complete lie. Mark did plead guilty to the crime of bodily injury. If he “maintains his innocence” that just proves he either lied to the judge (hi, perjury!) or he is lying through his attorney. One more notch in the deception belt. What is on record, his pleading guilty, is the truth. What he said in the courtroom is the only thing that matters. What he said to the media is what he pays his lawyer to do: spin the truth. “Mark agreed to this result because the original allegations were abandoned and for closure.” WRONG. He pleaded guilty because he said he did it. Check the court records. Defending someone to the best of your ability is your job, Mr. Sparks. By saying he took the plea deal for reasons other than his admission implies he lied under oath when he pleaded guilty.
  
  Also in Mr. Sparks’ statement, he makes it seem like the DA just gave up on the case and whipped out an offer. This is TOTALLY false. We had always prepared to go to trial. On the last docket, the defense approached and asked for time and if the DA would consider a negotiation as an alternative to an open plea (trial by judge). We agreed and they came back to the DA’s office with the desire to have the charge changed to a misdemeanor. He is taking advantage of the fact the DA’s office cannot comment on cases so he can literally spew any kind of false information without accountability. I’m here to tell you every insinuation in his statement is 100% false.

I am so glad this is over. As I state, this is the end not because of any confession or admission of guilt (which, even though he said the word, “guilty,” he evidently didn’t mean it after all), or him asking me for forgiveness (he didn’t even look me in the eye one time in the 10 minutes I read my statement, even though I said I would like to look him in the eye to tell him).

It is over because I have spoken the truth into the world and I have forgiven him. The only lies that have any power any more are the lies he tells himself.

Thank you for all of your support and prayers over the years, especially this last one. I’m going to sign off for a couple days and cuddle my little girl and celebrate the end of this with my family.

Honorable Judge Hagerman: I want to thank you for this opportunity to give this statement. I would also like to thank Mr. William Knight and Detective Charles Cisneros who wisely and compassionately utilized the criminal justice system to hold Mr. Aderholt accountable for his character and actions.

And before I address the defendant, I want to express gratitude to my husband Tim for supporting me with enduring and sacrificial love during this turbulent time, to my family and friends, including those standing with me today in flesh and in spirit, for their encouragement, love, and prayers, and to our daughter Charlotte who gives me the strength to move beyond this trauma into a courageous and joy-filled life.

Now, I would like to address the defendant, Mr. Mark Aderholt.

My family moved from Abilene to Arlington a couple of weeks into my junior year of high school, and I was completely alone. I knew nobody outside of my family and my parents were desperately trying to make ends meet. I was questioning my faith for the first time in my life because of the way the church treated us before we moved. I grieved the rich community I left behind, so I tried to do the one thing I knew how to do in pursuit of finding friends: be the good Christian girl.

Because we weren’t going to church, I reached out to several pastors on America Online trying to find someone who could help me start a See You at the Pole event at my school. You responded to my email and we met at a McDonalds at the Hypermart off Cooper and Bardin in Arlington. After my mom met you and went to do her shopping, we talked over french fries. When we were done, we went to find my mom and the two of you exchanged seminary and missionary stories before we went our separate ways.

My See You at the Pole event failed completely and I was having a crisis of faith and identity. You encouraged me to not give up, and you invited me over to your apartment to talk and pray.

Finally, I thought. A friend.

I went to your apartment, a bottom floor one bedroom in North Arlington. As we spent time together, we got to know each other. You told me about Pampa and your time at Wayland Baptist and your mission trips and your school. You told me about your family and your sisters—one was my age, give or take. 

We had fun: We went to Kroger in your blue Grand Am and bought ice cream. You took me to have dinner at Razoo’s in Sundance Square. You kissed me and we acted silly at Greenbriar Park when a car flashed their lights at us. “Let’s give them a show,” you said. I wanted to buy a yellow truck like the one you parked next to at your apartment. You said girls who drove yellow trucks were hot.

I felt blessed to have you, this man of God, as my friend. We sat on your floor to watch a movie. As your arm brushed against mine—and then stayed there for a moment, I remember feeling nervous but excited. Did you want to be more than friends? You held my hand. You kissed me. And then you kissed me more. 

On the floor next to your TV, you were on top of me kissing. You rolled off of me for a moment and propped your head up on your arm. You asked if I was a virgin and I awkwardly said yes. You told me you weren’t, that you lost your virginity when you were 13, but it was a mistake you wouldn’t make again.

You continued kissing me and your hands wandered all over my body. No boy had ever touched me the way you touched me, or in the places you touched me. And you were no boy. You were a man, almost a decade older than my sixteen years. I was afraid to say no, afraid that I would lose one of my only friends. 

We met many times over my junior year in high school. And out of nowhere, you ended it.

You told me you were engaged and getting married later that year to a girl you met overseas. She was coming back to the states in the summer and could never find out about us. 

That was the moment everything changed. Beyond violating my body, when you told me to never talk to you again, you broke my spirit. 

The world was no longer safe and even the Godliest of men could not be trusted. I was just a body with breasts and hips and thighs and other things too intimate to name. I felt ashamed of what we did, humiliated in my naïveté. You didn’t care that I was already lost and alone and hurting when I met you. In fact, you took advantage of my vulnerability. I was the least likely person to tell anyone what you did. And although it took some time, you were mistaken.

When I turned 25 and was mentoring a 16 year old girl, I had a revelation just how inappropriate it was for you to pursue a romantic relationship with a girl who had only recently earned her drivers license. I realized you intentionally and dishonorably harmed me and violated me in the most intimate way. This wasn’t a bad break up: You manipulated me. 

You sexually abused me.

I told leaders at the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention what you did, and after they investigated it, they determined I was telling the truth. But they let you resign and over the next decade, you were promoted in your career in the SBC. I could never reconcile why they’d let you do that. It didn’t make sense. Now we know that you continued advancing because you were dishonest with everyone about your past. 

When the #MeToo movement was going viral on social media, I was mostly offline, busy as a new mom, changing diapers and starting nursing school.  As I looked down at my daughter and reflected on an article a friend sent, I thought to myself, “What am I going to tell her when she’s older? How am I going to make the world safer for her?” Surely there was something more I could do. 

I decided to report you to the authorities and go public with my story, knowing it would be a step to reclaim the truth in this false narrative you directed for so long. Knowing it was a step to put an end to the power of your dishonesty. 

On July 3, a year ago tomorrow, you were arrested.

I am grieved your family has experienced such pain because of your actions. However, you also need to know the dramatic and traumatizing way your disregard for me as a woman and as a sister in Christ has affected me.

Nine years ago, I checked myself in to an inpatient counseling facility. I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder because of what you did to me.

I wanted to heal: I wanted to be able to not have a panic attack or feel a searing pain between my legs when I had sex. I didn’t want to shake with fear every time I saw a mid-nineties blue Grand Am. I wanted to drive down Highway 360 to visit my parents without getting nauseous when I passed your old apartment. I didn’t want to feel dread driving by Greenbriar Park every time I went to spend time with my grandparents. Even this year as I would visit my dying grandmother, I would see that park. Something as sacred as her final days were cloaked in the shadows of evil from when you sexually abused me.

During the investigation last year, there were days I couldn’t get out of bed because of my anxiety. Our daughter, who had just taken her first steps, toddled to the bedroom door saying,  “mama, mama” and my husband would redirect her saying, “mama’s sleeping,” even though I wasn’t. I was so exhausted, but yet I couldn’t stop crying. I thought my husband and daughter would be better off without me: a broken, hopeless person.

Mark: you need to know that what you did to me made me want to kill myself many times. I even tried once a few years ago, but I couldn’t figure out how to work the gun. 

On Mother’s Day last year, about a month after the investigation started, I headed to Nashville and went to inpatient therapy again because of my suicidality. While I was there, you were coming home from a mission trip, telling people about a fabricated lawsuit you were supposedly settling with me: a woman from your past who was suing you—something, by the way, that has never happened. When you were on your plane home, I was in an ambulance heading to Trauma Bay #2 of Skyline Hospital in Nashville, out of my therapy treatment two weeks early, because of a freak accident. During a game of baseball, someone lost their grip on the bat and it missiled into my jaw, breaking it in four places. I’ve had four surgeries, two bone grafts, plates and screws and braces and implants. My face will never be the same. 

The cost of this accident and all of the mental health expenses over the last two decades has a price tag of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is just one more way I’ve suffered because of the abuse, and it will forever affect my family’s financial future.

When I first wrote this victim statement, I wrote about how I prayed that you were a statistical anomaly. I wrote about how I hoped I was the only person you sexually violated. 

I have since learned you are not an anomaly. 

I am not the only woman you took advantage of. 

Others have come forward in the past few days and shared that you used their vulnerability for your sexual gratification, at times even doing so after you were told to stop. There are hearts everywhere damaged by your refusal to own up to what you’ve done. The truth is exploding out from all the places you have hidden it. You can no longer hide in the duality you live in. 

Mark, here we are, face to face, 22 years after seeing each other for the last time. My heart is no longer broken. It has been rebuilt by love and faith and those who have helped carry it and patch it over the years.  I never thought I’d see you again, ever, but now I can and I want to look you in the eyes and tell you I forgive you. 

I forgive you, Mark. For all of the pain, the time I had to spend away from loved ones, the fear of intimacy, and the financial losses. I forgive you for stealing the good I believed about the world and for damaging the image of a perfect and loving God who I still often doubt cares for me or protects me. 

I forgive you. And my heart aches for the person-the man-you could be if you would just tell the truth and accept the responsibility that comes with it.

I used to believe that in order for this ordeal to be over, you needed to tell the truth and ask me to forgive you. I know now that’s not the case. This is over because I have spoken the truth. It’s over because I have forgiven you. Your lies have no more power. 

This is over, Mark. This is the end.

I do pray, however, that it is a new beginning for you.

I pray you begin to feel the pulse of conviction pursuing your heart. 

I pray you begin to immerse yourself in the repentance and forgiveness you have spent your life proclaiming but never fully experiencing. 

I pray that you begin to choose to live honorably and honestly for yourself and for your family.

And I pray you will know the holy and saving power of God’s perfect and unconditional love. God loves you so much, Mark. Please ask for the strength and the help you need to be made whole. He does not forsake those he loves. He hasn’t forsaken me. He won’t forsake you either.