Joyce Meyer Ministries has asked a judge to restrict opposing lawyers from contacting its employees.
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The request came one day after Jack Carey, a Belleville lawyer, filed in open court a former ministry employee's revealing statement to detectives investigating the murder of Sheri Coleman and her two boys. Carey has sued Christopher Coleman, the ministry's former security chief awaiting trial for the triple murder, for wrongful death and is seeking to add the ministry as a defendant.
"On more than one occasion plaintiffs' counsel has contacted the employees of JMM without notice to JMM's counsel. JMM's counsel advised plaintiffs' counsel to desist from communicating with JMM employees," wrote Mike King, a lawyer for Joyce Meyer Ministries, in a motion filed in Monroe County Circuit Court on Tuesday.
The request also covers former employees.
King alleges Carey wrote a letter last month to Kathy LaPlante, a then-employee of Joyce Meyer Ministry, without disclosing it to ministry lawyers.
"As you know, direct communication by you with my client is a clear violation of the code of ethics," King wrote in a letter to Carey.
Carey mailed LaPlante a letter and included a subpoena for an e-mail statement she sent to the Major Case Squad after the murders.
LaPlante turned the statement over to Carey, who filed it in court in support of his motion to add the ministry to the suit.
The nine-page document said Sheri Coleman was afraid of her husband in the months before her murder--and that the ministry intimidated LaPlante from giving her opinion of the situation to detectives investigating the subsequent killings. It also portrayed the ministry in a somewhat unflattering light.
The bodies of Sheri Coleman, 31, and sons Gavin, 9, and Garett, 11, were found in their bedrooms at home in Columbia the morning of May 5. Christopher Coleman, 32, was charged two weeks later with first-degree murder and is held without bail pending trial. He has pleaded not guilty. The prosecutor is seeking a death sentence.
The court filing indicates LaPlante still worked at the ministry last week.
Now, LaPlante is no longer a ministry employee, according to King, who said she resigned to pursue another opportunity. LaPlante has declined to comment, referring all questions to the Major Case Squad. The ministry requires employees to sign a confidentiality agreement, according to an employee handbook released by attorneys last year. The agreement prohibits employees from "disclosing matters pertaining to members of management which are considered personal or private by them or which would reasonably be considered personal or private."
LaPlante's husband still works at the ministry as a pastor, according to King.
Carey said King's motion is unnecessary.
"There was no improper contact with any Joyce Meyer Ministries employee," Carey said. ""This is much ado about nothing. It was an oversight on my part. I thought I had sent Mr. King a copy of the letter."
The ministry's motion is set to be considered by a judge next Tuesday.
SOURCE: STL Today - Nicholas J.C. Pistor
