Billy Baldwin Film Targeted by Sex Abuse Victims Over Locale

Feb. 13, 2012— -- Advocates for sex abuse victims have called on actor Billy Baldwin and his production company to cancel plans to film a movie on the grounds of a Florida evangelical church that was scarred by a child molestation scandal.

Baldwin, 48, and the brother of actor Alec Baldwin, is set to shoot the film, "Blind Faith," on the campus of Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, where its founder, Robert "Bob" Gray Jr., was alleged to have molested more than 20 young children in the 1970s and 1980s.

Gray was arrested in 2006, but died at age 81 before he could be prosecuted. For 38 years, ending in 1992, when he fled the country, he led the church and its Trinity Christian Academy, where his accusers were elementary students or parishioners.

"We beg you to consider the atrocities that these men and women suffered when considering where to shoot your film," leaders from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) wrote in a letter sent today.

"'Blind Faith' is supposed to be an uplifting story meant to inspire others," they wrote. "Please don't cause these victims more pain by allowing the site of their torture to profit from your movie."

The film is based on the true story of a high school senior who struggles to become the first blind person to play football. Baldwin plays the coach who gave Christian inspiration to the real-life athlete Michael Chastain.

Don Snellgrove, president of Sunrise Recording and Film Productions, told the Christian Post that he hopes the project will "relay elements of faith."

The film has not yet received financing, according to sources close to Baldwin.

"No one is saying there is a predator on staff now," said David Clohessy, director of SNAP. "Movie producers and actors aren't stupid. Surely they know what happened there and that they have many, many options for other places to shoot."

Officials at Trinity Baptist Church say they have not yet been contacted by SNAP, nor have they received the letter.

"We believe the movie 'Blind Faith', and the real life story it portrays will be an inspiration to everyone who sees it," said Daniel Riddick, the church's director of communications. "We are privileged to be able to provide our facilities without charge to make filming of the movie in Jacksonville possible. Trinity serves thousands of people in Northeast Florida each week through multiple ministries, and the protection of minors is a high priority in every ministry."

"It's not just a case of a child-molesting cleric," Clohessy told ABCNews.com. "His colleagues and supervisors have been ignoring and concealing the crimes and cover it up like it never happened here. Church officials essentially rewarded financially or otherwise for enabling those crimes."

Twenty women and one man spoke up decades later to say they had been sexually abused as children.

Gray was charged in May 2006 with six counts of capital sexual battery involving four women who alleged they had been molested in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the Florida Times Union. He died in 2007, one month before the trial was to begin.

After his death, civil lawsuits were filed by women alleging the church took no action against Gray. The cases were thrown out because they were filed too late to meet the statute of limitations.

Another decade-long Trinity teacher, 56-year-old Anthony Denton, was arrested in 2007 on charges of sexual assault and 16 counts of felony indecent liberties with a child 1977 and 1981 in North Carolina, according to The Florida Times Union.

Victims across all religious denominations have been increasingly vocal about institutional child abuse since the Catholic Church scandal and allegations that fundamentalist Christian churches and schools sanctioned physical punishment and turned a blind eye to molestations.

In 2010, ABCNews.com and "20/20" reported on the case of Tina Anderson, who was raped and impregnated as a 15-year-old by by a New Hampshire church deacon.

Last year, both Penn State and Syracuse universities were rocked by sex scandals.