Ignite Life Center Church and FMD Sued for Over $100,000 in Civil Case Tied to Convicted Child Molester’s New Criminal Case
ORANGE COUNTY. On July 1, Horowitz Law Firm filed a negligence and vicarious liability lawsuit against Gainesville church Ignite Life Center (ILC) and the Orlando-based Florida Multicultural District (FMD) of the Assemblies of God (AG). The lawsuit is directly connected to the new criminal case against former ILC youth counselor and convicted child molester Gabriel Hemenez.
The Plaintiff is a minor being represented by their mother who is using a pseudonym. Court records show the Plaintiff is seeking over $100,000 in damages and is demanding a jury trial.
Hemenez was arrested for sex abuse against minors in July 2023 and sentenced to five years in prison in March 2024.
In March 2025, Gainesville Police Department detectives pressed new child molestation charges against Hemenez, but the case hasn’t been filed by the State Attorney’s Office. According to the sworn complaint, the victim, who is the Plaintiff in the new lawsuit, was sexually abused by Hemenez for two weeks while attending the Ignite Summer Internship (ISI).
The lawsuit alleges that the ILC and FMD failed to stop Hemenez from sexually abusing the Plaintiff when they could have reasonably done so.
According to the lawsuit, the Plaintiff and their mother attended services at Refuge of Hope (ROH), which is the church owned by former Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera. While attending the church, the Plaintiff and their mother were introduced to Rivera’s longtime friend and business partner, ILC head pastor Mark Vega.
The lawsuit states Vega “extolled the virtues of the ILC programs for children, including ISI, a summer camp operated for minor children at ILC.”
According to the lawsuit, Hemenez was employed at ISI and “resided in the dormitory with the underaged boys and was generally responsible for their care and supervision.”
Hemenez was permitted to lay hands on students during spiritual counseling, which he abused to sexually molest the Plaintiff and other children at ISI, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states ILC and FMD “each committed additional acts and omissions regarding Hemenez’s sexual abuse of Plaintiff that have not yet been made public but made Plaintiff vulnerable to sexual abuse by Hemenez.”
According to the lawsuit, ILC “was subject to the authority and oversight” by FMD on certain matters as a district-affiliated church, including, “(1) developing and enforcing sexual abuse prevention policies and procedures, (2) training, supervising, and evaluating employees for fitness, including, but not limited to, [head pastor] Mark Vega and the other pastors of ILC responsible for protecting children, and (3) operating a summer camp such as ISI.”.
The lawsuit concludes that ILC and FMD “created a foreseeable risk of sexual abuse by Hemenez for the Plaintiff, specifically, and for minor children who encountered [him] through his role with [ILC and FMD] generally. Despite this, [ILC and FMD] each: (1) failed to take necessary precautions to warn Plaintiff (or anyone else) about Hemenez's propensity to sexually abuse vulnerable church members, (2) failed to adequately supervise Hemenez, (3) failed to take appropriate remedial action when it knew or should have known of the risk created by Hemenez, (4) failed to develop, follow, and/or enforce effective sexual abuse prevention policies and procedures, (5) failed to adequately train and supervise staff responsible for protecting the minor children entrusted to the care and custody of [ILC and FMD], and (6) otherwise failed to act to lessen the risk that Hemenez would sexually abuse the Plaintiff.”
This is the fifth Orange County lawsuit filed against ILC and FMD for negligence and vicarious liability; three cases have settled and the fourth still pending.
The first three lawsuits were launched by other victims of Hemenez’s sexual abuse and were similar to the most recent lawsuit, alleging that ILC handled reports of Hemenez’s sexual abuse internally and that FMD didn’t properly oversee the church to prevent the sexual abuse.
The fourth lawsuit, filed in February 2025, pertains to sexual abuse committed by Vega's son, Christian Vargas, who has been on pretrial release since July 2023 on two child sex abuse cases. The lawsuit alleges that Vargas committed sexual abuse while working for ILC and FMD. The complaint is confidential so there isn't much publicly available information on the allegations.
More information on ILC is available in the investigation below.
