Jeff Church Wiki – Jeff Church Biography

A children’s theater director, who faced multiple allegations of sexual abuse during his 30-year career, was found dead on Saturday, December 24.

Jeff Church, 63, was found dead by local police at his West 63rd Street residence in Kansas City on Saturday afternoon, shortly after The Coterie Theater announced that he had accepted his resignation.

Church had reportedly worked as an artistic director at the theater for more than three decades, and directed and produced a number of plays and musicals in the city.

Allegations of sexual abuse of several young male actors and theater employees began to surface on December 20, when a former actor claimed that Church sexually assaulted him at a pool party in 2017 when he was 22.

The medical examiner’s office has yet to determine a cause of death and authorities are still investigating the case at press time.

Jeff Church Age

The age of Jeff Church was 63 years.

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Jeff Church, Cause of death, How Jeff Church died

The former actor, who raised the allegations, named Dashawn Young, said in a now-deleted video that he and Church had been on two dates but their relationship had ended at that point. According to Young, he went into Church’s room after the party to remove his bathing suit when the former tried to have sex with him, according to The Pitch.

The outlet reportedly spoke to nearly a dozen former employees of The Coterie, who described Church’s predatory behavior as “the worst kept secret in the Kansas City theater.”

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Church, told the outlet that he used “the promise of career advancement, combined with social, professional and physical pressure, to portray predatory behavior in young male actors.” Church’s alleged victims claimed that the limited size of the Kansas City theater scene meant that he had considerable power and used it to manipulate young people.

Young told Pitch that the only interaction he had with anyone at the theater about his situation was when an employee asked him not to tag his account in accusations about him on social media. However, a couple of days later, local radio personality Mark Manning filed his own allegations against Church, accusing him of assaulting him when he was 27 in 1991.

Manning reportedly said he knew other people who had been abused by Church and that three of them contacted him after he posted his allegations on Facebook saying they had had similar experiences.

Speaking with the Kansas City Star, Manning said he wanted to support Young and any other victims who were afraid to come forward. “It’s been going on for over 30 years,” he said, adding: “Most of these people were young theater artists trying to make their way in their stage career and a person in a position of great authority to direct them and decide who stays”. paid and who gets the job [was] interfering in people’s lives.”

Another actor who worked with Churchh, KC Comeaux, responded to the allegations with his own statement on Facebook. He said Church “groomed, abused and assaulted” him when he was in his early 20s.

He urged any other victims to come forward and assured them that he and “many others” were there to support them.

The Coterie announced on Friday, December 23, that it would place Church on “administrative leave” pending investigation. Shea Coffman, another actor at the theater, told The Pitch that he had a “series of unwanted encounters” with Church in 2007.

Coffman, who was reportedly 19 at the time, said he believed he was pulled from a production. in the theater because he rejected Church’s advances.

The theater finally announced Saturday that it had accepted Church’s resignation but would investigate the matter independently. “We want you to know that we are taking these allegations very seriously and will move forward with the investigation immediately, despite the impending vacation,” they wrote on Facebook. Church’s biography has since been removed from the theater’s website.

According to The Pitch, a complaint was filed against Church alleging that he had used the Coterie Theater’s Instagram account to send sexually explicit messages.

The outlet wrote that they found it “hard to believe that Coterie’s board has not been informed of its artistic director’s accused actions in the past.” The complaint also alleged that Church continued to annoy staff and that there was little oversight against him. However, when the theater made its statement, the authorities had found him dead.

Kansas City police responded to a call for a dead body at around 1:42 p.m. m. local time on Saturday. Responding EMT crews pronounced Church dead at the scene,Read More……