United Methodist Church Bishop Robert Farr has suspended a pastor from clergy responsibilities after learning she worked for Jeffrey Epstein, according to an update in UMN:
“The Rev. Stephanie Remington, a member of the Missouri Conference that Farr leads, worked for Epstein first as an administrative assistant from August to December 2018 and then as a temporary property manager of his private island from January until May 2019.
That was when he was already a convicted sex offender, but before his second arrest in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking minors.”
While Remington is not being accused of a crime, she’s been suspended for 90 days while the episcopal office reviews the matter in accordance with church legal procedures, over some “descrapancies” in her story and actions.
Remington served for more than 15 years as a pastor in various UMV churches, taking leave in 2016 after divorcing her husband, a fellow UMC pastor. This, however, is where things went sideways.
Paragraph 344 of the Discipline says clergy in extension ministries must annually submit a written report to their bishop, district superintendent and board of ordained ministry. These reports are meant to help evaluate how clergy are serving the mission of the church and fulfilling their ordination. All clergy in extension ministries also are to maintain membership in and send annual reports to a local church in their home conference.
The Missouri Conference says that following her leave, Remington submitted paperwork stating she was performing extension ministry at the Wesley Theological Seminary in their Lewis Center for Church Leadership, which was approved.
Remington then moved to the US. Virgin Islands, where she worked for the seminary as a remote, part-time contractor from 2017 to 2018, after which she left, all the while claiming she was still doing ministry duties there. ,
Along with her departure not being noted, her subsequent employment with Epstein was also not shared, as the conference had no knowledge of it and was almost certainly never going to approve it. The conference said in a statement:
‘The Missouri Conference had no knowledge of the individual’s association with Mr. Epstein…No information indicating this association was disclosed in any of those reports. The Bishop or district superintendent were not contacted about the individual’s interest in or acceptance of the Epstein-related position.
Clergy are called to uphold the highest standards of spiritual and moral leadership. Concerns of this nature are taken seriously and require careful review. We recognize the deep harm connected to Mr. Epstein’s crimes and remain in prayer for survivors who deserve healing and justice.
UMN further reports:
Remington said she did file a report last year and later told her district superintendent through Zoom about her time in the Virgin Islands, including her work with Epstein. She said she was unsure if the district superintendent fully understood her mention of Epstein.
The conference said in its statement that no information indicating this association was disclosed in any of her reports.
“The Bishop or district superintendent were not contacted about the individual’s interest in or acceptance of the Epstein-related position,” the conference said.
Also:
Remington acknowledged that she went for a period without submitting any reports and said she never received any follow-up from the conference. She also said no conference leader contacted her to see how she was doing after her divorce.
Remington, whose name appears more than 1800 times in the Epstein files, was primarily tasked with running the day-to-day operations of the island, including arranging travel for guests. While acknowledging her NDA, she told UMN that she never witnessed Epstein or anyone else on the island engage in abuse.
“I never saw anything. I knew him for the last nine months of his life, well after he served time for the things that he was accused of doing.”
In a personal blog post in 2019, which was written under a pseudonym, she spoke frankly about her decision to work for Epstein.
So when I wanted so deeply to move back to the islands, and this dream job fell into my lap (I literally got paid well to sit in an air-conditioned glass front beach office to play with numbers and organize information all day), I had to grapple with whether or not I could ethically accept it.
As I’ve mentioned before, the billionaire from whose loot my paycheck would come was a reputed scoundrel. He had been accused and convicted of doing some deplorable things more than a decade prior, and I just didn’t know if it would be wise for my reputation or my soul to put myself into his network…
She did take the job, however, explaining:
..at the end of the day, the only thing I’m obligated to stand for is what I believe is right. And what I believe is right does not always agree with what the rest of the world thinks. But to conform my way of being in this world to the expectations of others, once again, would be the antithesis for how Jesus lived. Jesus built his friendships not with the elite of his communities, but with the criminals and outcasts of society.
It outraged the religious people of his day and eventually led to his execution. And I felt that if I withheld relationship from this man because of his past, then I would be turning my back on every message of hope I have ever preached, every invitation to God’s unconditional love I have ever extended, and my calling to be a healing presence in the world for all people.
