By Judy L. Thomas
The Kansas City Star
GRANDVIEW, Mo. — All Grandview police and fire chaplains associated with the International House of Prayer-Kansas City have been dismissed in the fallout from a third-party investigation into a sex abuse scandal involving the 24/7 global ministry, according to local officials.
“I can confirm we severed ties with several of our public safety chaplains who had past or present connections to IHOPKC,” Grandview Police Chief Charles Iseman told The Star in an email.
“Based on the independent investigation and the totality of the situation, I felt compelled to part ways with these individuals in the group. The chaplain program can provide a unique and beneficial service for our citizens experiencing difficult times, and we hope to rebuild it in the future.”
Iseman did not provide the exact number or names of the dismissed chaplains. But the city’s communications director, Valarie Poindexter, confirmed that all chaplains with ties to IHOPKC were dismissed.
The Grandview police and fire departments have a handful of remaining chaplains who are not associated with IHOPKC, Poindexter said.
Grandview Fire Chief Rodney Baldwin told The Star that Lenny La Guardia, a former member of IHOPKC’s Executive Leadership Team, was among the chaplains dismissed.
“Chief Iseman and I did meet together, and any of the chaplains that had worked with the IHOP organization or had affiliation with them, we removed them from the program,” he said.
“There were some chaplains that weren’t affiliated with IHOP, and we’re looking to rewrite the SOP (standard operating procedure) and do a separate vetting process to ensure that there’s an appropriate background investigation completed by the police department, so that when we do have people show up at the station or on scenes, that they were properly vetted.”
La Guardia, who stepped down from his leadership role at IHOPKC at the end of May 2024, did not respond to The Star’s multiple requests for comment.
Poindexter said the chaplain program is “a great service for people who are having a tragedy in their lives.”
“On a homicide or some kind of a violent crime, the chaplains can really comfort people — bystanders or family who happen to show up,” she said. “And they support the police department as well. But he ( Chief Iseman ) is taking a really close look into the vetting policy in the future.”
The chaplain dismissals came after the Feb. 3 release of the findings of the third-party investigation into sex abuse allegations against IHOPKC founder Mike Bickle and others associated with the night-and-day prayer ministry.
Conducted by Firefly Independent Sexual Abuse Investigations, it found that Bickle committed sexual abuse or misconduct against 17 women — some when they were minors — over decades, amid a thriving culture of systemic abuse and cover-up.
In addition to the Bickle incidents, the report said the investigation uncovered 16 cases of sexual abuse and misconduct perpetrated by people associated with IHOPKC but not directly related to Bickle.
Leaders suppressed allegations, investigation finds
The investigation also found that certain members of IHOPKC’s Executive Leadership Team — including longtime police and fire chaplain La Guardia — “were more focused on suppressing and minimizing reports of sexual abuse, misconduct, and rape rather than supporting the victims or staff who reported these incidents.”
La Guardia was mentioned several times in the Firefly report. In one case, it said, he was present when a woman confronted then-executive director Stuart Greaves at IHOPKC’s Forerunner Church in the fall of 2023 about Greaves’ mishandling of her report of being sexually assaulted by a staffer.
The woman told the Firefly investigator that the confrontation was recorded and La Guardia warned her, “If you don’t delete that, I’m going to give your name to somebody, and they’re going to contact you. It will cause trouble if she’s recording to trap somebody. It’s not going to be helpful for you.”
Another person told Firefly that La Guardia was contacted after witnessing “concerning interactions involving a minor child and other young children.” La Guardia acknowledged seeing the same behavior and said that “appropriate actions would be taken,” the report said. “However, no measures were implemented, and the incident remained unreported,” it said.
Five others said they sought assistance from La Guardia on disclosures of sexual abuse victims and were told that IHOPKC would handle the situation and they shouldn’t discuss the issues with anyone, according to the report.
Another witness told Firefly that in December 2023, La Guardia met with IHOPKC’s Ministry Outreach team to discuss allegations against Bickle, including that he had manipulated a woman by telling her that his wife, Diane, was going to die — a tactic Bickle was alleged to have used with other women as well.
La Guardia allegedly urged the group to disregard the allegations. When the witness asked La Guardia about the story of Bickle’s wife dying, the report said, “La Guardia responded by saying, ‘Jesus is going to return soon, Mike and Diane are going to preach boldly, Diane is going to die a martyr, and Mike will have to marry someone else.’”
In another instance cited by the report, a witness said he approached La Guardia with concerns about a volunteer youth group leader. The report didn’t identify those involved, but The Star named them in news reports about the case last year.
In 2022, Justin Werner filed a police report stating that his youth group leader, Larry Lucky , sexually assaulted him in 2010 when he was 16.
The witness told Firefly that he went to La Guardia stating that Lucky “needed to be removed from working around kids, and he was told, ‘No one could be banned.’”
But La Guardia told The Star last August that he had never heard the details of the allegations against Lucky until The Star contacted him.
The Firefly report said Lucky declined to be interviewed, citing pending legal action and referring Firefly to his attorney.
In February, Lucky sued The Star for defamation, after Jackson County prosecutors declined to file charges in the case. In his lawsuit, Lucky states he met with Werner “approximately two to four times to engage in consensual sexual acts,” but alleges this was after Werner turned 18. The legal age of consent in Missouri is 17.
The report noted that IHOPKC’s Child, Youth and Worker Protection Policy said suspected incidents of abuse or neglect were initially to be discussed only with the pastor or department leaders. The leadership, along with the person receiving the report or suspecting child abuse, was to then give the information to La Guardia, the vice president of ministries and justice. Then La Guardia was to determine whether there were sufficient grounds to report it to the Missouri Children’s Division.
“Examining the long-standing culture of systemic sexual misconduct and cover-ups that have thrived in the 24/7 prayer movement since IHOPKC’s inception in 1999,” the Firefly report said, “it is evident that leadership often took it upon themselves to investigate sexual misconduct claims, interrogate victims, and discourage them from reporting to the police.
“Furthermore, the systemic nature of this misconduct cannot be overlooked. Patterns of behavior that shielded perpetrators and minimized victims’ experiences were embedded within the organizational structures. In many cases, leadership employed tactics such as victim-blaming, gaslighting, and coercion to suppress allegations. Moreover, the lack of external oversight and accountability allowed these practices to continue unabated.”
Efforts to obtain responses to the report’s findings from La Guardia were unsuccessful, it said.
“We have made multiple attempts to contact LAGUARDIA via email and in person at his residence,” the report said. “Unfortunately, we have been unable to elicit any response from him.”
According to Missouri law, ministers and others responsible for the care of children are mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse and neglect, and failure to report is a Class A misdemeanor. The statute of limitations for prosecuting such an offense is one year.
Founded chaplain program in 2007
La Guardia, who also was director of IHOPKC’s now-closed children’s ministry — the Children’s Equipping Center — founded the Grandview Police Department’s chaplain program in 2007, according to his bio formerly on IHOPKC’s website. That information was removed from the site after the sex abuse allegations against Bickle became public in late 2023.
Other sites that showed La Guardia as a Grandview police chaplain also were taken down after the allegations surfaced — including the Grandview Police Department’s chaplain site, which had photos and bios of its chaplains, with La Guardia described as a head chaplain. That site is now private.
IHOPKC closed its Children’s Equipping Center last May along with IHOP University and Forerunner Church as it struggled to stay afloat while losing $500,000 a month in donations in the aftermath of the sex abuse scandal.
La Guardia and his wife have continued a children’s ministry through their nonprofit organization called M4 Initiatives, and IHOPKC partners with them, according to a July 31, 2024, IHOPKC email to followers.
La Guardia also served several years as a chaplain for the Kansas City Police Department. He resigned from that position in June 2022.
The Star asked Kansas City police last year to confirm the dates La Guardia was a chaplain. Police spokesperson Capt. Jacob Becchina said it was difficult to find that information because “volunteers are a little harder to track down years and dates of service.” The Star found police department documents showing La Guardia had held that position since at least 2018.
The police department’s 2021 annual report contains a photo of its chaplains and refers to La Guardia as the lead chaplain.
Becchina told The Star in an email that “there are not any investigative or other police-related duties completed by Chaplains.” He pointed to a description of the chaplains program on the KCPD website that said “chaplains are volunteer ordained clergy of multiple denominations who provide pastoral and spiritual support to members of the department and community.”
La Guardia told The Star last year that as a chaplain, he was never involved in any police investigations.
“I have never given input or influence to any investigation, including IHOPKC, or the investigation pertain to Justin Werner,” he said in an Aug. 13 email. “I was not a KCPD chaplain in July of 2022 when a report was filed, I formally stepped down as a KCPD chaplain June 2022.
“My role and proven track record as a chaplain has always been 100% supporting first responders along with those impacted in the community through very difficult events and circumstances.”
He provided The Star with a copy of his resignation letter to the KCPD dated June 20, 2022. In it, he said he was resigning “due to a realignment of my personal and ministry priorities.”
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