MORGAN HILL — A jury fully acquitted a San Jose nonprofit director of sex abuse charges alleging he molested two girls when he was a youth pastor at a San Jose church, concluding a dramatic trial that saw him fight back by framing the allegations as a conspiracy by his accusers’ families to land a multi-million dollar legal settlement.
The verdict, handed down late Wednesday evening in the Morgan Hill courtroom of Judge Stuart Scott, exonerated 49-year-old Brett Bymaster of 10 felony sexual abuse charges. The case was built on allegations made by two sisters who claimed he serially groped and violated them when he was their youth pastor at The River church in San Jose between 2013 and 2019.
A courtroom gallery occupied by a dozen of Bymaster’s family and supporters collectively gasped and broke into tears when the verdict was read nearly an hour after the court had officially closed for the day. Earlier in the afternoon, jurors signaled to Scott that they had agreed to acquit on one count but had fallen just short of unanimity, 11 to 1, on the rest.
Scott and the jury had been scheduling additional deliberations for Thursday and Friday, and the installation of an alternate juror on account of one juror having prescheduled travel. During those discussions, Scott noted that the deliberations on the remaining counts would need to start over because of the juror swap.
The jury had actually left the courtroom when a minute later, the foreperson returned with her colleagues in tow, asking to hold another vote. About 15 minutes later, they returned with unanimous not guilty verdicts on the remaining nine counts.
Bymaster was swarmed outside the courtroom by his supporters and he gave a prepared statement to this news organization.
“After over a year of waiting, the truth has finally come to light. I am grateful that the jury saw past the lies and prevented a miscarriage of justice,” he said. “I am ready to get back to the hard work of serving Jesus and loving our neighbors in the downtown San Jose Washington community. Our family continues to pray blessings and healing for all those involved – both our accusers and our supporters.”
Deputy District Attorney Christopher Paynter, who prosecuted Bymaster, said he was not prepared to immediately give a statement on the trial outcome.
Bymaster, who had gone on to help found the low-income advocacy nonprofit Healing Grove Health Center in San Jose, was arrested in April 2024 after a woman identified in court as “K. Doe” told San Jose police that Bymaster sexually assaulted her repeatedly starting when she was 8 years old and continuing until she was 13.
Doe’s claim fueled six child sex abuse charges — including two that alleged intimidation or force — that were approved for trial five months later, following a preliminary hearing. After that, her older sister, identified as “J. Doe,” came forward with her own account of abuse involving Bymaster, which eventually added four more felony sex abuse charges to the prosecution’s case.
Paynter portrayed Bymaster as a manipulator who leveraged his professional and spiritual authority over his accusers, who were preteens and then teens over the course of the alleged acts, leaving them helpless and having no confidence that church officials would believe them.
The sexual touching alleged by the reported victims included “side hugs” that the prosecution asserted were pretense for fondling their breasts, and “wandering massages,” as well as more serious alleged acts that involved contact with his penis.
Defense attorneys Dana Fite and Renee Hessling called the allegations complete fabrications fanned by five influential church families who were looking to scapegoat the church for problems they were experiencing with their children, which included a suicide attempt by K. Doe when she was 14.
That motive took preexisting concerns about Bymaster’s teaching and leadership style — in which he was accused of bullying — and transformed them into claims of sexual abuse. The attorneys then characterized the families as both deluding themselves and manipulating the Doe sisters into remembering abuse that did not occur.
Fite and Hessling argued that their theory explains why no sexual abuse claims were made against Bymaster until shortly before his arrest, which was five years after he left the church, even during multiple inquiries into his conduct. But they said the biggest motive for the reputed deception was to secure a $2.1 million settlement, for which the church set aside cash and property in anticipation of a sexual abuse lawsuit fueled by Bymaster’s conviction.
“Today’s verdict reaffirms what we have known from the very beginning: Brett is innocent. We have believed in him and the truth of his story from day one,” Fite and Hessling said in a joint statement. “This outcome is a powerful example of our justice system working and we are honored to have played a part in ensuring that the truth prevailed.”
One of the catalysts for renewed scrutiny into Bymaster last year was the families’ dissatisfaction and claims of betrayal after it was revealed that a 2021 inquiry did not make a good-faith effort to solicit and explore sexual abuse claims. Around the time the church announced plans for a new external investigation in January 2024, San Jose police renewed their own investigation, which stalled years earlier when initial claims of abuse were recanted.
The two sides argued over both the timing of the allegations as well as the claim by K. Doe that she unlocked her repressed memories of Bymaster’s abuse after undergoing eye movement and desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy at a Tennessee mental-health rehabilitation facility, during an institutionalization that the church reportedly spent $85,000 to fund. The defense attorneys said that account misrepresented EMDR’s proclaimed benefits of diminishing trauma rather than revealing it.
Paynter and the defense team also sparred over testimony from other girls under Bymaster’s supervision who recalled instances in which Bymaster made sexually suggestive comments about their breasts, and talked wantonly about masturbation and a past porn addiction. But Fite and Hessling called many of those claims a distortion of confessionals that Bymaster gave to reveal personal failings and open up candid dialogues about sex, rather than prurient intentions.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.