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It proved too much for the girls. The day after Leslie and Lisa met with Buck, they woke up crying, curled into fetal positions. The girls were afraid Paw-Paw and Sweetie — their names for Buck and Patsy — were mad at them. Lisa says she wasn't sure what to do, so she called Patsy, who came over immediately. Both Lisa and the girls are certain of what happened next.
Ashlee says she told Klem, "I'm sorry that it happened, but I'm not sorry for telling my mom."
Brea says that, after she got on the phone to apologize, Klem had an apology of his own. "He said to me, 'I'm sorry about my bad hands,' and nobody heard him. So I knew he knew what he did. And that was pretty pathetic for him to say that."
So boom, it never happened. Ashlee started making herself vomit after meals, but it didn't last long. Lisa moved her back to Louisiana. It cost her a marriage, but she couldn't leave Ashlee around Buck, Patsy, Beth and Klem.
While Patsy chose to believe her granddaughters were lying, the girls would get to address Klem in open court after he admitted to touching them.
Brea recalls her statement: "I just remember telling him that he was a nasty man and I was sad for him, that he liked to watch little girls being tortured, and [to] watch them cry whenever their families turn against them, and that I forgave him even though I had to say 'sorry' to him four years ago."
"I just wish it'd be over. This is the reason why kids don't come out and say anything. This is it."
— Ashlyn Treadway
"It's just not a matter that we're dealing with."
— Danny Russo, Superintendent, Texas District, UPCI
The Tampa Marriott Waterside is a beautiful hotel resort boasting a marbled lobby with palm trees dwarfed by gigantic columns.
It sits upon a riverwalk, adjacent to the Tampa Convention Center. In late September, it was flooded with UPCI ministers and their special guests, in town for the annual general conference. They got a cut rate — $119 a night. As usual, Buck Treadway's expenses were covered by his congregation.
Buck was unavailable for comment even before he split for Tampa. On the first call, he was attending to more important matters.
"He is swimming laps out in the pool," Patsy Treadway said. Patsy declined to comment, citing a nonexistent gag order.
The hesitancy comes not just from the civil suit, but from a notorious meeting at New Life Tabernacle in August 2006 that may have cost the church a third of its membership. When former members speak of that meeting, they sound like someone who endured an alien probe — shocked, hurt and, most of all, unsure of what the hell happened.
Although the nearly-five-hour meeting was recorded, the only known copy was subpoenaed by the grand jury in Klem's criminal case. Jefferson County prosecutor Waylon Thompson said the tape was not public record, and attorney Kip Lamb said that, while he's heard the tape, he doesn't have a copy himself. While Lamb conceded that Buck Treadway sounds a bit odd on the tape, his ramblings had nothing to do with the civil suit.
It's not clear who made the recording, as Buck told the congregation upfront that no tape recording or note taking would be tolerated. Then, according to some who attended, he ordered an usher to lock the doors.
Arnold Hamilton, Marsha Hamilton's husband, recalls, "For the next five hours, there was shouting, rebuking, slandering and all kinds of distractions in that meeting."
This included asking all those who supported him to rise, without actually explaining what they were supporting. After he got that tally, he asked those supporters with master's degrees or higher to stand up, ostensibly demonstrating that, if well-educated people supported him, anyone else would be a fool not to.
"He humiliated all of those who didn't stand to support him," Arnold Hamilton says.
According to former members, Buck also singled out kids who were present. He polled them, one by one, first asking if they'd ever lied, and then if they were virgins. For those who confessed, Buck hit them with a harsh "I rebuke you!"
According to Arnold Hamilton, Buck also rebuked his son, Leslie, saying he was incapable of marrying a decent woman.
When Buck finally said, almost in an offhand manner, that he was being sued, Arnold and Marsha Hamilton suddenly knew what this was all about.

