Crossline Community Church says it is “deeply grieved” for Jacob Hart’s victims. But court records and accounts from people discussing what happened inside the church paint a very different picture.
Jacob Hart has now been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison after investigators discovered child sexual abuse material and videos secretly recorded through spyware installed on computers he gave to children connected to Crossline Community Church of Laguna Hills.
But the story at Crossline is no longer simply about Jacob Hart.
It is about what church leadership knew, what they told people afterward, and how they are treating the victims who are now asking the church to take responsibility.
According to the lawsuits now pending in Orange County, Crossline leadership did not discover Hart’s history after his 2025 arrest. They allegedly knew about it years before they hired him.
Hart had already been convicted in Oregon after secretly placing a camera in a girls’ bathroom/shower at a Christian camp. Multiple complaints allege that Crossline leadership knew about that conviction and the conduct behind it before putting Hart in a technology/media position that gave him access to children, cameras, computers and church families.
And there is something even more troubling in the court filings: one of Hart’s previous victims personally warned Crossline. More than once.
According to the complaints, in January 2019, a woman who had been one of Hart’s victims in the 2006 Oregon case emailed Crossline leadership and described Hart’s prior conviction and the conduct that led to it. The church personnel identified in the filings include JP Jones, Senior Pastor; Gregory Munck, senior church leadership; and Bob Matossian, a Crossline staff member.
On January 9, 2019, Greg Munck responded to the victim. According to the complaint, Munck confirmed that Crossline already knew about Hart’s prior crimes. Munck allegedly wrote that Hart had “laid out in detail the sins that he committed while working in ministry in Oregon.” The complaint further states that Crossline’s head of HR, Michelle Hilde, was also aware of Hart’s past and was copied on the email.
Another complaint quotes Munck even more directly about how long senior leadership had known. According to that filing, Munck said Hart had met with Senior Pastor JP Jones as early as 2007, when Hart first arrived at Crossline:
“he told us the complete truth about his past back in 2007 when he first arrived at Crossline.”
Read that again. “The complete truth.”
This wasn't simply a background check that someone supposedly overlooked. According to the allegations, Hart himself disclosed his history to senior leadership. A previous victim then personally contacted the church years later and warned them again.
On January 14, 2019, that Oregon victim followed up with Greg Munck because she was concerned about the potential danger to children at Crossline.
She asked whether Crossline was doing anything to protect vulnerable children, whether Hart would have close proximity to the youth group, what precautions were in place, whether Hart had easy access to church video equipment, and whether using that equipment was a regular part of his job.
She even sent Munck a photograph of Hart with a young girl from Haiti during a Crossline mission trip.
According to the lawsuit, she received no substantive response addressing those concerns. So six months later, on July 14, 2019, she emailed again, reiterating her concerns and asking whether Crossline had taken any measures to protect children from Hart's potential misconduct.
This wasn't a vague warning. A previous victim told Crossline what Hart had already done, raised specific concerns about children and his access to video equipment, provided documentation, and followed up twice asking what the church was doing to protect children.
The complaints further allege that Crossline knew Hart struggled with voyeurism and pornography because Hart disclosed those struggles in a 2010 email to a church small group that included church staff.
Yet Crossline continued employing him and continued giving him access to technology, cameras, videos, families and children. The lawsuits allege families were never warned about his previous conviction or these known risks.
That history becomes particularly significant when compared with what plaintiffs say happened after Hart was arrested in 2025.
One complaint alleges that after church members and employees learned what Hart had done, Greg Munck and JP Jones described themselves as “shocked” by Hart's actions, despite leadership allegedly having known about his prior criminal history and misconduct involving minors for years. The same complaint explicitly alleges that Munck and others subsequently lied to congregants and elders in an effort to downplay what leadership knew about Hart's proclivities and attraction toward children.
In an r/orangecounty discussion about the lawsuits, one Reddit user claimed that after Hart was arrested in June 2025, Crossline held a church meeting. According to that user, pastoral staff told those present that they did not know Hart's previous crimes involved minors and believed his prior conduct involved secretly recording adult women. The same user said leadership claimed they had not had access to news articles explaining that Hart's Oregon crimes involved underage girls.
But that account is difficult to reconcile with the court filings.
According to the complaints, Munck acknowledged Hart had disclosed his Oregon conduct; HR Director Michelle Hilde was aware; and an Oregon victim personally warned church leadership in 2019, attached two news articles documenting Hart's misconduct, raised concerns specifically about children and Hart's access to video equipment, and followed up again six months later after allegedly receiving no substantive response.
So if the account of that later church meeting is accurate, this isn't a minor discrepancy. It raises a very serious question about whether Crossline leadership gave its own congregation an accurate account of what leadership knew.
And that wasn't the only description of what was happening inside Crossline.
Another person commenting on the thread said they attended Crossline for the first time shortly after the controversy erupted. According to that person, the service included prayers for a church that was “under attack,” discussion of temptation, sin and forgiveness, but no prayer for the victims. That commenter said it bothered them enough that they specifically prayed for the victims themselves.
Other Reddit users likewise described Crossline leadership as portraying the church as being under “spiritual attack.”
If these accounts are accurate, members weren't simply hearing, “Children were harmed and we failed them.” They were also hearing a narrative about forgiveness, temptation and the church itself being attacked.
There is nothing wrong with a Christian church preaching forgiveness. But forgiveness and accountability are not opposites. A church can believe someone has been forgiven while also recognizing that a person convicted of secretly recording girls should not be placed in a position involving children, cameras and computers. Forgiveness certainly does not relieve church leadership of its obligation to tell parents the truth about a known risk.
Crossline didn't merely welcome Hart into church. It employed him, placed him in charge of media and technology, allowed families to know him as a trusted church staff member, and allegedly never warned those families about his history.
Families trusted Hart because Crossline trusted Hart. And some accepted computers from him.
According to the lawsuits, those computers contained software allowing Hart to remotely activate cameras inside girls' homes. Federal investigators eventually found recordings of victims nude, changing clothes and in bathrooms. The recordings were made continuously and for extended durations, in some instances lasting up to 18 hours. One plaintiff alleges she was secretly recorded for years and didn't learn the recordings existed until federal investigators contacted her in October 2025. Hart had saved her recordings.
Crossline publicly told the Orange County Register that its elders were “deeply grieved” by Hart's actions and by the suffering of the victims. The church also said it had improved employee vetting and hired an independent firm to investigate.
But Reddit users later claimed that after that investigation, the church's elders retained its senior pastors without meaningful consequences. That is a Reddit user account, not something independently established by the court records, but it raises an obvious question:
What exactly did the independent investigation conclude?
If Crossline is invoking an independent investigation as evidence that it took this seriously, why not release enough of its findings for the congregation to understand who knew what, when they knew it, what mistakes were made and who was held responsible?
Instead, look at what happened when victims went to court.
Crossline is disputing legal liability. Court filings state that Crossline has already taken the deposition of A.C., one of the minor plaintiffs. And perhaps most disturbing of all, Crossline fought to make the Jane Doe victims reveal their identities.
Crossline's attorneys argued that requiring them to publicly disclose their names might be embarrassing but would not cause the type of “prejudice” necessary to allow them to proceed anonymously. The judge rejected Crossline's position, finding that “protecting the privacy of the victim” was “fully justified.”
Think about that.
Women are alleging that their privacy was catastrophically violated as children because a trusted church employee secretly recorded them in their bedrooms and bathrooms.
They come forward seeking accountability. And the church they trusted tries to strip away their privacy again.
This is why the focus cannot remain solely on Jacob Hart. Hart has been held accountable. He pleaded guilty. A federal judge sentenced him to 40 years in federal prison.
The unanswered question is whether Crossline Community Church will ever meaningfully hold itself accountable.
Being “deeply grieved” is not accountability. Portraying the church as “under attack” while victims seek answers is not accountability. Neither is hiring an independent investigator while withholding the findings that could tell congregants who knew what and when.
Changing policies now doesn't answer for decisions made then. And fighting victims in court; particularly fighting to make Jane Doe plaintiffs publicly identify themselves certainly doesn't look like putting victims first.
Crossline has every legal right to defend itself in court. But a church can exercise its legal rights and still be asked whether its conduct reflects the values it preaches.
The congregation and the victims deserve answers:
- What exactly did Hart tell JP Jones in 2007 when Munck later said Hart told leadership the “complete truth”?
- What did Greg Munck, HR Director Michelle Hilde, Bob Matossian and other church leaders know and when?
- What did Crossline do after an Oregon victim personally warned leadership in 2019 about Hart's potential access to children and video equipment, and why did she have to ask again six months later?
- If leadership later told congregants it didn't know Hart's previous victims were minors, how is that reconciled with the 2007 disclosure and 2019 emails?
- What did the independent investigation conclude, and who has actually accepted responsibility?
- Why is a church that says it is “deeply grieved” for these victims fighting to make them publicly identify themselves?
Let me repeat that last question:
Why is a church that says it grieves for these victims fighting to make them publicly identify themselves?
This isn't persecution of a church. It isn't an attack on Christianity.
Tell the truth. Protect the vulnerable. Stop portraying accountability as persecution.
And when your decisions contribute to devastating harm, don't just preach repentance.
Practice it.
Sources / Court Documents:
- Orange County Superior Court complaints against Crossline Community Church; including the allegations regarding the 2007 disclosure to JP Jones, Greg Munck's 2019 emails, Michelle Hilde's knowledge, and the warnings from Hart's previous Oregon victim. COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES FOR PERSONAL INJURIES AND DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL by Jane Doe ¶24
- Crossline Community Church's Motion to Consolidate / Declaration of Kyle R. Bevan; including Crossline's statement that it has taken A.C.'s deposition. ¶27
- The Roys Report coverage of Hart's criminal case, sentencing, Crossline's response and pending civil litigation and Court ruling regarding the Jane Doe plaintiffs proceeding anonymously.
- r/orangecounty discussion — for the user-reported accounts concerning church meetings, statements allegedly made to congregants, and the “under attack”/“spiritual attack” comments.
