Democratic Senate candidate Adam Hamilton acknowledged during a Wednesday night debate that he made a “mistake” in his handling of a volunteer later convicted as a sex offender, after Republican incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall pressed him on the matter in the closing stretch of a tight Kansas race.
Hamilton, a Methodist pastor who leads Kansas’ largest church, has faced mounting scrutiny over the case of Scott Moore, a volunteer accused of molesting teenage boys at church retreats in 2005 and 2006. Moore was later convicted in 2013 on a misdemeanor sexual battery charge stemming from a separate 2010 incident involving his son’s friend during a sleepover.
Hamilton said an internal church review of allegations made by two boys in 2005 was “inconclusive,” and that police investigating at the time reached the same conclusion. Even so, he said he believes Moore should not have been allowed back as a volunteer in 2006.
“I was actually preaching that weekend at Church of the Resurrection, and I did not sign off on him going back. I should have checked to make sure that he wasn’t going back,” Hamilton said. “That was a mistake on my part.”
Hamilton added that once Moore was investigated again the following year, the church barred him from working with children. “He left our church angry and upset. And again, we played a critical role several years later in getting him arrested and convicted,” Hamilton said.
According to court records, a 15-year-old boy alleged in November 2005 that Moore touched his penis, and a 14-year-old said Moore reached inside his sleeping bag during an overnight retreat. Prosecutors later noted that both boys gave “detailed” statements to church officials at the time but could not positively identify Moore. He returned as a volunteer in November 2006 and allegedly touched a 15-year-old boy inappropriately. The church reported that incident to the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, but the county attorney’s office declined to pursue charges.
Teenagers from Hamilton’s congregation who had alleged abuse in 2005 and 2006 went on to testify against Moore in the case that led to his 2013 conviction.
Hamilton has previously addressed the episode outside the debate stage. He told the Kansas Reflector in July that he “absolutely” would have handled the situation differently in hindsight, while insisting “there was no attempt at a cover-up.” In a Tuesday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, he said “it was not completely clear what had happened at the time [in 2005] and who exactly had done this thing,” but acknowledged Moore “should have never been there” in 2006, calling it one of several “mistakes that were made.”
Marshall, for his part, faced his own late-breaking line of attack during the debate over reports that his medical practice sued roughly 700 patients over unpaid bills. Marshall said the decision to litigate was “out of our hands” once the debts were turned over to collections agencies, and described the practice as standard among doctors and hospitals.
Polling shows the Kansas Senate contest remains close heading into the final stretch. Hamilton has sought to position himself as a moderate Democrat, criticizing former President Joe Biden’s border policies and distancing himself from the party’s progressive wing.
