Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Dori Contreras of the 13th Court of Appeals in Texas regarding a matter of public concern surrounding Richard Galvan.
CEO’s of G5 Internet Services Richard Galvan and Sonia Galvan seem to be paying for articles. Why would they do this? If you understand anything about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) it’s a very simple answer. The more content, the more likely your chances are to rank up in google/yahoo/bing, etc. Why would they be doing this now? Well, that answer is also simple- because they probably don’t want the opinion from the 13th Court of Appeals to be easily searchable. Fortunately, no matter how many companies they hire and pay, this website is getting an average of 300 views a month. It would be almost impossible for it to be outranked, no matter how much Richard Galvan and Sonia Galvan would like it to be. Richard Galvan and Sonia Galvan should have thought about reputation management prior to his 2007 sexual assault of a teenage girl.
Article showing “paid content”Another article from “accesswire” clearly showing a firm has been paid to flood the internet with generic articles.
Richard Galvan has also appeared to have purchased the rights to a domain with his name. It’s a simple tactic with SEO to hire a reputation management company.
The 13th Court of Appeals Opinion written by Chief Justice Dori Contreras was released in October of 2019. Multiple legal websites posted it (which you can find here) and with an easy search on Google you could find it just by typing the names of the parties involved. After a few months they began disappearing from Google Search one by one, until they couldn’t be found. Assuming this was done at the request of The Galvan’s, this website was created to ensure the public has free and easy access to the public information. Over the last month there have been multiple articles (like the one below) posted regarding Richard and Sonia Galvan and their company G5 Internet Services. The Galvan’s have assumingely hired a company for reputation management (which they discussed in their depositions), as well as have seemingly attempted to get the opinion of the court ranking lower on Google and harder to find through a simple search. There are blog posts being released almost daily (all of which say generically the same thing, and written in a way to boost SEO). Clearly, this is an attempt to try and bury the court opinion.
The opinion from the court is that thisWAS and REMAINS a matter of public concern. The public has the right to know about Richard Galvan’s prior sexual misconduct, assault, and he and Sonia Galvan’s attempt to sue the victim into silence, despite how much they would like for it to be hidden by paying for generic articles which seem to be written by themselves (or from writers in Kenya).
Richard Galvan and Sonia Galvan appeared to have hired a company for reputation management. Generic article from a paid company hired by Richard and Sonia GalvanAnother Generic paid article “As engaged members of the community, Richard Galvan and Sonia Galvan support local, state, and international non-profit organizations. Most recently, they showed support for a battered women’s shelter in Nicaragua. They have served on numerous boards, directed local events, and sponsored many local activities. Sonia Galvan has served as a board member for Pregnancy Testing Center, a local, non-profit center for women that are pregnant. Richard Galvan has served as vice president for the City of Mercedes Economic Development Corporation for six years, FCA, and president for his local country club, and, until the pandemic hit, served on a cohort to build a new joint educational facility with Harlingen ISD and the University of Texas RGV.” Contributor Paul Wafula Paul Wafula is a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple successful businesses in the field of writing, content marketing, web design and also SEO. Ever since graduating from the University of Nairobi, in Kenya, content marketing and writing has been one thing that Paul has been passionate about and now help’s entrepreneurs and businesses alike get their story heard across the world.
Sexual Assault in the church is rampant. Predators like Richard Galvan are attracted to positions in the church due to the easy access to young people, as well as the “forgiving” nature of most religious people. There is a great article written by a former FBI agent Joe Navarro regarding this very thing.
There was no dispute or objection from Richard Galvan or Sonia Galvan that they were ministers at their church youth group. Therefore the complained of communication was “a communication made in connection with a matter of public concern,” and thus, an exercise of Blaine Crews’ right of free speech.
Here, Blaine communicated that: Richard had sex with Hannah when she was seventeen years old and prior to her senior year of high school; Richard was her youth minister and pastor; Richard Galvan sexually seduced Hannah under the pretense of spiritual healing; Richard offered Hannah help to heal spiritually and emotionally after her break up with her high school boyfriend; and Richard told Hannah she was entrusting him to help her heal by giving him her virginity. Under the Texas Penal Code, a sexual assault occurs if “the actor is a clergyman who causes the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual adviser.” TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.011(b)(10) (defining sexual assault by a clergyman)
A sexual assault under Subsection (a)(1) is without the consent of the other person if:
(1)
the actor compels the other person to submit or participate by the use of physical force, violence, or coercion;
(2)
the actor compels the other person to submit or participate by threatening to use force or violence against the other person or to cause harm to the other person, and the other person believes that the actor has the present ability to execute the threat;
(3)
the other person has not consented and the actor knows the other person is unconscious or physically unable to resist;
(4)
the actor knows that as a result of mental disease or defect the other person is at the time of the sexual assault incapable either of appraising the nature of the act or of resisting it;
(5)
the other person has not consented and the actor knows the other person is unaware that the sexual assault is occurring;
(6)
the actor has intentionally impaired the other persons power to appraise or control the other persons conduct by administering any substance without the other persons knowledge;
(7)
the actor compels the other person to submit or participate by threatening to use force or violence against any person, and the other person believes that the actor has the ability to execute the threat;
(8)
the actor is a public servant who coerces the other person to submit or participate;
(9)
the actor is a mental health services provider or a health care services provider who causes the other person, who is a patient or former patient of the actor, to submit or participate by exploiting the other persons emotional dependency on the actor;
(10)
the actor is a clergyman who causes the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other persons emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergymans professional character as spiritual adviser;
(11)
the actor is an employee of a facility where the other person is a resident, unless the employee and resident are formally or informally married to each other under Chapter 2 (Child in Relation to the Family), Family Code; or
(12)
the actor is a health care services provider who, in the course of performing an assisted reproduction procedure on the other person, uses human reproductive material from a donor knowing that the other person has not expressly consented to the use of material from that donor.
In 2007 and prior to her senior year of high school in Harlingen, TX, Hannah Crews (then Linn) suffered a break up with her high school sweet heart. Her youth pastor Richard Galvan hired her at his office, and began to counsel her. Richard told Hannah that the reason she was heartbroken was because of the physical attachment she had developed with her ex-boyfriend and “that the physical aspect of it caused her to be spiritually connected to her ex-boyfriend’s soul.” Richard explained to Hannah that the way to heal from her break up was through intimacy.
According to Hannah:
Richard would then bait me with his questions, asking, ‘so what do you think you need to do to move on from this pain?’ Richard made me think I needed to respond with ‘having sex,’ since he had just explained that sex brought healing. He then shook his head yes and told me that he would ‘help me out with this.’ Richard again told me that completing this physical act of sex would heal me spiritually, since the two (physical intimacy and spirituality) were tied together. He also convinced me that since I trusted him as my mentor, it was safest to go about it this way (having sex with him instead of someone else).
Nothing happened that day physically between us. It still took many more conversations to convince me that having sex with him (Richard) would help me heal. I even asked him during a later conversation, “But that means you would be taking my virginity,” of which he got angry with me, stepped close to my face, and said sternly, “No, I am not taking your virginity, you are giving it to me, because you are entrusting me to help you heal.” Since I had deep love and admiration for his wife Sonia, I would also ask him how it was okay to do this since he was married. He convinced me, over and over, that this act was a strictly physical action for a spiritual healing for me and me alone. But he also told me that she would never know about this, so I didn’t have to worry about this hurting her.
Finally, after weeks and weeks of conversation and manipulation and coercion and convincing in Mr. Galvan’s office, at the beginning of volleyball season before school started in August of 2007, I agreed to meet Richard at the La Quinta hotel in Mercedes, TX. Richard was fearful of being discovered that day, and even thought a car across the street was a hired investigator that was possibly watching us. We went upstairs, I agreed to sexual acts, and lost my virginity that day. Afterwards, I had to go to school and travel with my team to play in the first volleyball tournament of the pre-season. I was still 17 years old. And that was the first and last time I agreed to do anything physical with Richard Galvan for the rest of my life.
Hannah’s mother found out and confronted Richard. Richard then went to Hannah’s parents house and admitted what had happened to Hannah’s mother.
In October 2018, Hannah told her husband Blaine the details of the events that occurred. After learning of Richard Galvan’s identity, Blaine became very upset and obtained Sonia Galvan’s cell phone number and texted her. Richard called him back almost immediately. Blaine was concerned that Richard may “still be associating himself with youth and placing himself in a position to take advantage of other young women under his authority.” According to Blaine, during his conversation with Richard, Richard acknowledged that the events Blaine recounted about Richard’s sexual relationship with Hannah were true. Blaine told Richard and Sonia Galvan that he was concerned about Richard being around young women and that people needed the information about his interactions with Hannah to determine whether Richard should be around their daughters.
Blaine then called Calvary Christian School (where Richard and Sonia Galvan’s children attended, and Richard Galvan had coached the girls basketball team) and The Living-Way Family Church in Brownsville, TX (where the Galvan’s attended church). Blaine attempted numerous times to reach Pastors Bill Moore and Anne Moore and inform them of Richard’s past sexual misconduct with teenagers, especially since Richard and Sonia’s daughter was in the youth group there. Bill Moore and Anne Moore refused to speak about the matter to the Crews’s or the Crews’s attorney, and instead allowed their executive assistant Melissa Barerra-Sosa to sign a sworn affidavit attempting to assist the Galvan’s by stating “Blaine went from cordial to upset” after she told him the pastors wouldn’t speak to him. Since Richard was on the board for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in South Texas, he also reached out to them as well as the National FCA.
In or around November 2018, Richard and Sonia Galvan (The Galvan’s) filed a lawsuit against the Crews’s for Defamation Per Se, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Public Disclosure of Private Facts, and Civil Assault. The Crews’s filed a Motion to Dismiss via the Texas Anti-Slapp Statute on the grounds of freedom of speech in regards to a matters of public concern in which the trial court denied. They immediately appealed the decision and took it before the 13th Court of Appeals in Texas in which the Memorandum Opinion written by Chief Justice Dori Contreras reversed the judgement of the trial court, dismissing the Defamation per se cause of action. The Galvan’s have since nonsuited all of their remaining causes of action against the Crews’s.
On June 9th, 2020 the Crews’s were awarded mandatory fees and sanctions. Click here for more information. The Crews’s have filed a counter-suit for Malicious Prosecution and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress. That claim is still pending jury trial set for February 2022.
A photo of Richard Galvan preaching to high school aged children during an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) event. Though he and Sonia Galvan claim in their depositions neither of them held any kind of leadership role over young people.One of the biggest concerns for Blaine Crews was that Richard Galvan was associating himself with young girls in a position of authority- like this photo above which shows him coaching a girls basketball team. Blaine (a father of a daughter himself), could not allow the previous admitted behavior of Richard Galvan to go unrecognized. It is the sole reason he contacted the schools, churches, and FCA organizations. The parents of girls just like the ones above have the right to know about Richard Galvan and Sonia Galvan. The girls faces have been blacked out to protect their identity. Taken from The Valley Morning Star showing Richard Galvan involved with the HCISD (Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District). The opinion from the 13th Court of Appeals in Texas believes the public has the right to know about Richard Galvan’s sexual misconduct, as it pertains to a matter of public concern.
