The father of former Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, Pastor Rusty Chatfield, delivered a sermon this week that seemingly lashed out at rape allegations leveled against his son. “We’re in the spotlight,” the elder Chatfield said. “The enemy, he wants to distract us from the work of God.” He went on to say: “You can't believe everything you read in the newspaper, on the internet or whatever… The enemy is always lying, exaggerating, distorting.” Lee Chatfield’s sister-in-law, Rebekah, has accused him of repeatedly sexually assaulting her for roughly a decade, beginning when he was an adult and she was a 15-year-old student at Northern Michigan Christian Academy. Rusty Chatfield serves as superintendent at the school, where he also teaches history. Lee Chatfield has denied wrongdoing; his lawyer acknowledged that he had an affair with Rebekah Chatfield but insisted that the two were “consenting adults.”
