{"id":9329,"date":"2026-01-05T22:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T22:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/gospel-singer-donnie-mcclurkin-faces-sexual-assault-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:35:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:35:03","slug":"gospel-singer-donnie-mcclurkin-faces-sexual-assault-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/gospel-singer-donnie-mcclurkin-faces-sexual-assault-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Gospel Singer Donnie McClurkin Faces Sexual Assault Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tA new lawsuit alleges chart-topping gospel singer Donnie McClurkin sexually abused a young male congregant over the course of nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcClurkin, who has three Grammy Awards and numerous No. 1 entries on the Billboard <\/em>Top Gospel Albums and Gospel Airplay charts, faces sexual assault and sexual battery claims in the Friday (Jan. 2) civil complaint brought by a man named Giuseppe Corletto.<\/p>\n

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\n\tCorletto says McClurkin assaulted and raped him repeatedly between 2007 and 2015. The lawsuit includes an image of what appears to be a 2013 email from McClurkin, in which he seems to admit to and apologize for the alleged misconduct.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am the actual epitome of a desperate dirty \u2018old man\u2019\u2026groping a young man who is just looking for a friendship and close plutonic [sic] relationship with someone he looks to for help, guidance and spirituality,\u201d reads the email in the image. \u201cYou don\u2019t have that desire for me and I shouldn\u2019t have it for you. I forced myself on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBillboard<\/em> has not independently verified the authenticity of this email. A lawyer for McClurkin has not addressed the email, though he told Billboard <\/em>that Corletto\u2019s claims are \u201ccategorically false\u201d and \u201ccontradicted by the real facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt no time did Pastor McClurkin engage in any form of sexual abuse, assault or sexual coercion of Mr. Corletto,\u201d said McClurkin\u2019s attorney, Greg Lisi<\/strong>. \u201cThe claims set forth in the lawsuit grossly mischaracterize their interactions, which occurred over a decade, and some accusations over two decades ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"BEVERLY<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit alleges Corletto joined McClurkin\u2019s Perfecting Faith Church in Long Island, New York, at the age of 21 in 2003. Corletto says he sought out McClurkin\u2019s guidance because he was struggling with his sexuality, and the pastor had written about \u201cbeing delivered from homosexuality\u201d in a book two years earlier.<\/p>\n

\n\tCorletto alleges McClurkin, who was 44 years old at the time, began helping him to \u201cpray the gay away\u201d and eventually hired him as a personal assistant. The two started traveling together on business, and, according to the complaint, McClurkin began sexually assaulting Corletto.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first alleged incident was in 2007, when Corletto claims McClurkin forced him to have oral and anal sex in a California hotel room. The lawsuit says McClurkin did the same thing over the next two years during trips to Atlantic City, N.J., and Manhattan, as well as at his home on Long Island.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThroughout this period, plaintiff attempted to quit on multiple occasions,\u201d reads the complaint. \u201cDefendant, however, denied plaintiff\u2019s requests, further coercing him to stay by telling plaintiff that his \u2018deliverance\u2019 and \u2018purpose\u2019 were tied to defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tCorletto alleges he finally quit working for McClurkin in 2008, but that they remained in each other\u2019s professional circles. He says McClurkin sought him out again in 2012 and raped him in a Florida hotel room, as well as in Boston and Niagara Falls in 2013. The last alleged incident occurred in 2015, when Corletto says McClurkin engaged in \u201cfurther sexual misconduct\u201d while he was seeking spiritual guidance amid mental health struggles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a result of the foregoing, plaintiff has sustained injury, emotional pain and suffering, physical pain, emotional distress, celibacy, pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life,\u201d reads the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\tCorletto is now seeking an unspecified amount of financial damages from McClurkin.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
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A new lawsuit alleges chart-topping gospel singer Donnie McClurkin sexually abused a young male congregant over the course of nearly a decade. McClurkin, who has three Grammy Awards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[302,7210,458,7209,303,7211,301,1805],"class_list":["post-9329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-assault","tag-donnie","tag-faces","tag-gospel","tag-lawsuit","tag-mcclurkin","tag-sexual","tag-singer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9397,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9329\/revisions\/9397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}