For years, the Rev. Ivery Daniels was a pillar of the East Side community as pastor of White Rock Missionary Baptist Church.
But that reputation was shattered this month in State Supreme Court, where an attorney representing one of Daniels’ former parishioners in a Child Victims Act lawsuit persuaded jurors that Daniels was also a child molester.
“Does a pillar of the community stick his tongue into the mouth of a 14-year-old girl? Does a pillar of the community sexually abuse vulnerable children?” attorney Daniel Chiacchia asked in his closing argument.
Jurors believed Chiacchia and sided with his client, Collette Chappelle. The court awarded $4.5 million in damages to Chappelle for the abuse she said she suffered in the early 1980s while Daniels “counseled” her at the church.
Chappelle is one of the only Child Victims Act plaintiffs in the state to receive a jury verdict in a contested trial. The state Office of Court Administration said her case was the third such contested trial in the 8th Judicial District, which includes Western New York.
She is unlikely to receive a payout anywhere near $4.5 million because attorneys for the Buffalo parish and Daniels’ estate say neither entity has much money.
“It wasn’t about money,” Chappelle said in an interview with The Buffalo News. “I could have won $2 and I would have been happy because I got the truth out. Because I was believed.”
Daniels died in 2020. Karla Tillman, his daughter and the executor of his estate, declined to comment for this story. Anthony L. Pendergrass, an attorney representing the…
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