WATERLOO, Ill., Feb. 10 (UPI) -- A judge in Monroe County, Ill., said a lapsed deadline means televangelist Joyce Meyer will not be deposed as part of a wrongful-death lawsuit.
Monroe County Circuit Judge Dennis Doyle said Meyer and her staff will not be deposed despite Meyer's organization being named a respondent-in-discovery in a civil suit over three deaths, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday.
Christopher Coleman, the target of the civil suit, is accused of strangling his 31-year-old wife Sheri, and their sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9. The victims' bodies were found in the family's home in Columbia, Ill., May 5.
Attorney Jack Carey, who filed the suit on behalf of Sheri Coleman's family, said he missed a deadline for deposition filings because of scheduling conflicts.
Carey alleges in the suit that Meyer's ministry, which was providing counseling to the couple, "knew or reasonably should have known that Christopher Coleman was responsible for the threats made against his family and was reasonably likely to carry out such threats in light of his marital problems and well-known extramarital affair."
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported a Feb. 26 court date is scheduled to determine if Joyce Meyer Ministries will become a defendant in the suit.
