Republican Sen. Roger Marshall’s campaign is hitting Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton with a $1.2 million ad claiming the Leawood pastor shielded a child predator who volunteered at his church.
A new 30-second spot from the Marshall campaign charges that Hamilton failed to call police after victims reported abuse by a church volunteer, then allowed the man back into contact with kids before a later conviction.
The ad is part of a statewide buy on broadcast, cable, and streaming that begins this weekend, with Kansas voters set to decide the U.S. Senate race on Nov. 3. RealClearPolitics shows Marshall ahead of Hamilton by 1.5 percentage points.
The New York Post reported the Marshall campaign’s attack centers on Scott Moore, a former volunteer and camp counselor at Hamilton’s Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, the large Methodist congregation Hamilton has led as founding pastor for more than three decades.
The ad narrator lays out the charge in blunt terms: “What did Hamilton do when victims reported him to church leaders? Parents were ignored, and Hamilton never called the police.”
It continues: “The next fall, Hamilton welcomed him back. Free to lurk for new victims, later convicted of more child sex crimes.” The closer lands the political punch: “Adam Hamilton protected a pedophile. He should never be our senator.”
Hamilton’s campaign rejected the attack as recycled and false. Spokesman Tyson Brody said the church did report incidents to law enforcement and that Hamilton later helped secure Moore’s conviction.
“This is a desperate and shameful attack from a losing politician on his own state’s largest Church,” Brody said. “These smears from Roger Marshall were already examined in the primary by local reporters who found the church reported the incidents to law enforcement, and Adam later personally worked to help get this predator convicted.”
Brody also tried to flip the frame, claiming Marshall “had pregnant mothers arrested and jailed” and “voted to block the release of the Epstein files,” and arguing Marshall is “desperate to hide from his record.” Those counter-claims appear as campaign statements, not as independently detailed findings in the reporting.
Trial testimony later filled in what happened at the church’s annual sleep-away camp in November 2005. Two teenage boys, ages 15 and 14, said they were molested in a cabin. They brought concerns to church leadership the next day.
One victim testified: “I felt like a hand on my private area. And as soon as I began to stir, I noticed someone rise and leave the room very quickly.”
The second described Moore’s approach to the cabin door: “He came in that night and said that he had an open door policy. And he repeated it multiple times when we tried to shut the door.”
According to that first victim’s testimony, a youth minister responded by accusing the boys of attacking Moore’s character. “Essentially he told us that we were trying to slander Scott’s name and trying to make him look bad, and basically told us that we were messing with his life, and there could be serious repercussions for that,” the victim said. “And besides that, he really didn’t take any action to look into this further.”
On Nov. 7, 2005, parents met with church officials Randy Meyer and Nancy Brown. Hamilton did not attend that meeting. The mother of one boy later testified, “I was never really told the outcome.”
Former Hamilton assistant Sue Thompson told the Kansas Reflector that the pastor did meet with one of the boys and his parents around the time of the allegation. Thompson also said neither Meyer nor Brown was qualified to investigate the 2005 incidents. Brown had served on the church’s sexual ethics committee and authored a United Methodist training course on handling abuse claims, but she held no state certifications and was not a mandatory reporter under state law. Meyer likewise was not described as a mandatory reporter. Brown died in 2020.
A November 2011 prosecutors’ filing, as described in the reporting, put the church’s internal handling in stark terms. “As such, the non-experienced church investigators decided that they were not to report the disclosures to social services or law enforcement,” the filing stated.
Prosecutors also noted that the teenage victims gave “detailed” statements to church officials but could not positively identify Moore as their abuser at that time. Church investigators did not conclude Moore was the culprit after the 2005 complaints.
Moore returned as a camp counselor in November 2006. Another incident involving a 15-year-old boy at a retreat followed. The church fired Moore the next year and referred him to the Linn County Sheriff’s Office. The county attorney’s office declined to pursue charges on that 2006 matter.
Jason Gant took over as director of student ministries in January 2006 and later described a policy “overhaul” that year after the second round of claims. “My thought was, the moment this happened, ‘We’re calling the authorities,’” Gant said. He also said, “Everything was very above board,” and stressed that Hamilton put priority on child safety. Gant stayed at the church for roughly two decades after that appointment.
In April 2010, a fourth alleged victim told police Moore had sexually abused him in 1979. Court papers said the man spoke with the pastor and chose to make a report “so the information could be documented.” Hamilton has been described as encouraging that alleged victim to come forward in that period.
About a month later, in 2010, Moore inappropriately touched his son’s friend at a sleepover, the conduct that produced a criminal case. In 2013, Moore was convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery. Teenagers from the church were among those who testified against him. He served less than a year in prison, then probation.
In 2015, Moore was found dead at a family member’s home after being caught half-naked in a car with a teenage boy and fleeing. Gant said of Moore, “He took his life.”
How deeply Hamilton himself directed the 2005 internal probe or the 2006 sheriff referral remains unclear in the available record. What is clear is the sequence: early complaints, no immediate police call from the church’s 2005 investigators, Moore’s return to camp the next year, a later firing and referral that produced no charges, and a 2013 conviction tied to still another boy.
In a July interview with the Kansas Reflector, Hamilton said he “absolutely” would handle things differently today. “I can just say that our aim was to make sure that if we got anything wrong, we wanted to get it right,” he said. “There was no attempt at a cover-up.”
That defense collides with the Marshall ad’s core claim and with the prosecutors’ description of inexperienced church investigators choosing not to notify social services or police after the 2005 disclosures. Parents left a November 2005 meeting without a clear outcome. Moore was back in a counselor role the following fall.
For Kansas voters, the fight is no longer only about a two-decade-old church scandal. It is about whether a Senate candidate who pastored the state’s largest Methodist congregation met a basic duty when children reported abuse, and whether “we wanted to get it right” is enough after a predator got another year with access to kids.
Marshall is pressing the accountability case in a tight race. Hamilton’s camp calls it desperation and points to a later referral and conviction help. The timeline, the testimony, and the 2011 filing give voters the record to judge which explanation holds.
When children report abuse, leaders either call the law or they explain for decades why they did not. Kansas gets to decide which answer it wants in the Senate.
