Hillsong’s bombshell Carl Lentz report leaked: Sex, lies and manipulation

13.04.2022 - 02:53 / nypost.com

and launched shortly after Lentz was fired for adultery in November 2020. In an email to congregants in February 2021, now-disgraced church founder Brian Houston announced the investigation was complete and had unearthed “significant ways” the NYC operations had “failed to reflect Hillsong global culture” but offered little further information, The Post reported at the time. Those details have now finally come to light: A version of the 51-page report was leaked to the Christian Post, which on Monday published many of its most shocking allegations, including that working with Lentz “caused” many churchgoers “to suffer from mental illness,” that his wife Laura reportedly once punched a former nanny and current Hillsong pastor in the face “with a closed fist” and that, in addition to his alleged affair with fashion designer Ranin Karim, he reportedly had at least one more with a woman he met at a Brooklyn deli and saved in his phone contacts as “Germany.” The investigation was conducted by the NYC law firm Zukerman Gore Brandeis & Crossman, LLP.

According to the Christian Post, its report noted: “Due to the limited amount of documentary evidence, the extensive assertion of failure of memory by certain witnesses, and the necessity to rely upon oral testimony and demeanor, the conclusions in this report, although they may be phrased in a ‘factual’ style for readability, should be understood as the contentions of a witness, or statements of opinion by the investigating attorneys.”“It was not uncommon for volunteers and staff who had frequent interaction with Carl Lentz to report that such interaction had ‘caused’ them to suffer from mental illness,” investigators wrote in the report. In reviewing Lentz’s text messages,