The Seventh-day Adventist Church: 3 of its sex abuse cases from 3 centuries. Part 1: 21st century
Trigger warning: CSA. Series of 3 posts. Part 1: A 21st century case. Angel Gabriel Dubon of Bristol, Indiana. Alleged SDA Sabbath School teacher charged with child molestation. The church is silent.
Series of three. This is part 1.
Part 2:
Part 3:
Notes: CSA means “child sexual assault”.
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church calls itself “SDA” and “Adventist” for short. My writings do too.
Why I wrote this: By sharing these three different cases, I show the SDA Church has a 128 year track record of dealing with its sex abuse cases by silence, obfuscation, and deliberate cover up.
Relevant reliable source: The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network’s (RAINN) page on evaluating caregivers is here: https://rainn.org/articles/evaluating-caregivers
In that list, relevant to this case: The alleged babysitting business of the charged suspect’s wife was not registered. Registration doesn’t prevent all CSA. It makes a business subject to laws, regulations, licensing, and reporting. That minimizes CSA.
First case, the 21st century.
On 4/10/24, Angel Gabriel Dubon (Dubon) of Bristol, Indiana, was charged by the State of Indiana with four counts of felony child molestation. He is out on bail, awaits jury trial, is pleading innocent.
Someone alerted me to this case, saying that Dubon is a Seventh-day Adventist and I should look him up on social media. I social media stalked. All screenshots are public posts as of 9/26/24.
My source claims:
Dubon has attended the Elkhart [Indiana] Hispanic SDA Church (hereafter called “That Church”) for years. He is married with children who attended That Church. His wife babysat church members’ and neighbors’ children. There are rumors Dubon molested some of those children.
Dubon volunteered in That Church’s children’s ministries and at its Vacation Bible School. Over the years, multiple girls told That Church’s leadership that Dubon molested them. Church leadership did not tell police, and continued to let Dubon volunteer with children. Dubon allegedly still attends That Church.
What is on public social media: That Church’s Facebook pages are “Elkhart Adventist” and “Iglesia Adventista del 7mo Dia- Elkhart”.
(Note: There are two other Elkhart SDA Churches on social media. One is an English-speaking church in Elkhart, Indiana. The other is in Texas. Neither are involved.)
Too Long Didn’t Read:
Dubon is innocent until proven guilty.
I found no public proof of Dubon’s church attendance, volunteering, and membership.
Adventist social media appears scrubbed of connections with Dubon.
There are multiple public Facebook posts from different accounts supporting most of my source’s claims. If Dubon is innocent, this amounts to an ignored social media smear campaign against Dubon, his family, and the Elkhart Hispanic SDA Church.
If this IS a smear campaign, it's a lot of work for no reward. Ain't no news reports on Dubon. Said “smear campaign” is run by a person (or persons) that: (1) regularly update at least 7 different social media accounts started on different years, (2) is fluent in Spanish and English, (3) has different writing styles for each account, (4) publish photos of growing kids for years—each account has its own dedicated set of growing kids, (5) has 67 accounts/friends sharing publicly The Mom’s original post thus risking defamation lawsuits if a smear campaign is proven.
Dubon’s apparent social media accounts have connections to both the Elkhart Hispanic SDA Church, and Adventism.
If That Church’s leadership were informed of molestation and did not tell police, they violated Indiana law.
Source: In the State of Indiana, all adults are mandatory reporters. There is no clergy exemption. https://www.childwelfare.gov/resources/clergy-mandatory-reporters-child-abuse-and-neglect-indiana/
The Facebook posts: On April 15, 2024, someone I’ll call “The Mom” posted to Facebook a screenshot of Dubon’s felony charges:
She wrote:
The Mom did not state which “church” Dubon allegedly “hid behind”. She requested others to share her post.
One person shared The Mom’s post and named That Church’s Facebook page. It seems they wrote That Church still protects Dubon, but the comment is in Spanish. I do not speak Spanish.
Facebook’s auto-translation of her post:
A second person shared The Mom’s post. She wrote that Dubon “violated her [own] innocence” when she was ten and “the church is well aware of who he is” because “many girls” complained of his behavior:
A third person shared the mom’s post, saying the affected children “lived with [Dubon’s molesting them] for decades and nothing was done”.
A fourth person shared the mom’s post: “There’s no need to prove anything [in Dubon’s case]” because “women and children” are “coming forward”. They added “other people knew this was going on and swept it under the rug”.
A person commented on the mom’s original post with Dubon’s alleged Facebook:
This Gabriel Dubon profile is now private with all identifying details removed.
On May 18, 2024, the account posted a Bible verse. There have been no updates since.
On Instagram, there's an account under the same name, gabriel_dubon. It posted the same Bible verse image on the same day.
It posted a Spanish “Feliz Sabado” (“Happy Sabbath”) post from a Seventh-day Adventist social media account. One can tell by the little round white flaming Bible—the Adventist logo.
This suggests some affiliation with Adventism. Adventism is a small religion. Non-Adventist Sabbath-keepers usually promote their own religion’s “Happy Sabbath” posts.
There’s no obvious red flags on this Instagram account. There’s selfies of a grinning man styling fitted clothes. In one, he posed praying. There’s lots of Spanish quotes. Some are Christian. It resembles a social media account of a very religious Hispanic guy who likes how he looks.
Adventist social media appears scrubbed: That Church’s Facebook page, “Iglesia Adventista del 7mo Dia- Elkhart”, has over 5,000 likes and followers.
Dubon’s family allegedly have been active members for years. Nobody with surname Dubon follows, likes, is named, or tagged.
The page has no posts from March 31, ten days prior to Dubon’s arrest, to July 20.
The page used to stream church services live. Now it shows clips, or videos not in the church building.
Skimming back, there are weeks with regular church updates separated by months of no posts, photos, mentions, tags, comments.
In past years, Vacation Bible School (VBS) was publicly advertised and followed up with photos. This year’s VBS has no photos.
Dubon’s alleged Facebook profile’s connection to That Church:
The page has a few pics that sort of resemble the man on Dubon’s apparent social media standing next to children at VBS, but it might not be Dubon:
The Gabriel Dubon Facebook profile is friends with the former pastor of the Elkhart [Indiana] Hispanic SDA Church, one Pastor Leonardo Castillo. Sources: https://elkharthispanicin.adventistchurch.org/contact and posts from Leonardo Castillo are on That Church’s Facebook page.
The Adventist Church is silent. There's no comment about this case on any English or Spanish SDA sites.
Next up, the 20th century case. This one actually, definitely happened.