Stonebriar Church Staff Member Took Cheque From Traffickers
Child traffickers posed as an adoption agency at Stonebriar Church. Concerns were raised about the church’s potential involvement with the traffickers under the guise of an adoption agency. Attendees expressed fears over the possibility that a church could unknowingly engage in child trafficking, thinking they were working with an adoption agency.
DALLAS, TX —DCN spoke with undercover field officers who confirmed that multiple individuals associated with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell networked in 2018 in the Stonebriar Church lobby after church services. These individuals claimed to be representatives of a humanitarian adoption agency known as War Child, but were alleged to be engaged in activities that were procurement for child trafficking.
The field officers who provided information for this article and our ongoing look into what happened at Stonebriar Church, are undercover officers who were a part of the undercover investigation that led to the arrests of Epstein and Maxwell, as confirmed by officers in association with the office of James Dennehy, assistant director of the FBI’s New York field office. They requested to be referred to as “field officers” in order to maintain their integrity as undercover officers and so as not to jeopardize ongoing investigations.
According to field officers, individuals who identified by the names Kevin and Bri passed out their business cards and offered very large and generous “finders fees” in exchange for children that were provided to them for these adoptions.
However, these adoptions were suspected to be procurement for child trafficking after it became known that Kevin and Bri were aliases that were sometimes used by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell when they visited Stonebriar Church on a few occasions in 2018, though there was another couple who was associated with them that also called themselves “Kevin” and “Bri.”
It is suspected that one of the reasons Epstein and Maxwell sometimes used aliases when visiting the church may have been an attempt to disassociate themselves from The Miami Herald investigation that was going on at that time.
According to Lisa Thomas, a Stonebriar Church attender,
“I met Jeffrey Epstein when he came to the church. I shook hands with him and everything. I didn’t know he was a famous criminal at the time, though. I just thought he was just another member of the church community, and actually I thought he was a businessman because he talked about traveling and some business he had something to do with in New York.”
She said that the day she met him, she also met Ghislaine right before Epstein left with her to go to lunch.
Then before they all left together, she saw Ghislaine/Bri talking to Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota about a cheque she said she was giving him. Thomas said she was just standing around in the lobby talking with her friends, and then she noticed Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota engage in a conversation with Ghislaine/Bri about the adoptions they were offering.
She explained that from the way they were talking, it sounded like he may have referred a child to her for one of the adoptions, but wasn’t sure.
She said, “It may just have been a discussion about a donation someone was making to the church, probably to the department that Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota was managing, which is why he was the one having the conversation, but I thought it really sounded like it was about arranging adoptions.”
Field officers DCN spoke with, said that the group that visited Stonebriar Church with Epstein and Maxwell were under surveillance when they visited the church. They confirmed the conversation Thomas saw.
According to the field officer who discussed this conversation,
“It caught our attention and looked suspicious because one of the people involved in the conversation had a connection to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.”
There was a discussion between Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota and Ghislaine/Bri about the cheque he was receiving from her, and how it wasn’t as large as a different cheque that he received from her. She explained that they can’t make the cheques for the same amount each time because it sometimes raises red flags because of the amount of the cheques.
It was unclear at first exactly what the cheques were for, and there was a concern that Ghislaine/Bri engaged with a Stonebriar Church staff member in attempting to facilitate adoptions that were suspected to be procurement for child trafficking.
A deeper probe into the situation revealed that the cheques involved in that discussion were thought to be donations made to the church. It was not specified if the cheques were from Ghislaine/Bri personally, or if they were cheques she delivered from someone else.
The field officer DCN spoke with explained that the donation cheques she gave him may have been her way of telling him that she’s a big donor, or that she has friends that are, and that may have been something that was meant to motivate him to get her connected with people who want to get their kids adopted.
There was a concern among church attenders who witnessed the conversation, that Ghislaine/Bri was making an attempt to engage with the church at an organizational level and pull the church into a situation where they were a regular source of children for these adoptions.
During the conversation the Stonebriar Church attenders witnessed, Ghislaine/Bri talked like she was an expert in facilitating adoptions. Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota discussed the size of the church community at the megachurch and explained that within that size of a community, there are always people that need to have a child adopted or that know someone who does, such as single parent families and teenage pregnancy situations.
Ghislaine/Bri explained that they have a limit to the number of children they allow any person to refer to them to be adopted, which raised eyebrows and fueled concerns.
She said,
“We have a limit to the number we take from anyone or any one place. Can’t put all my eggs in one basket. Not everyone understands the good work we are doing, and the size of the cheques we give sometimes raises red flags.”
A church staff member who knew of this conversation explained that Ghislaine/Bri was unable to provide the professional certifications that were requested by the church to confirm her involvement with War Child. She also did not follow the same protocol that other adoption organizations followed, and became defensive when she was questioned about this, which made them step aside from further discussions about the possibility of moving forward with the partnership arrangement that was discussed.
Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota himself ignored us and refused to talk about the nature of the cheques and the conversations he had about this matter, and declined to comment on this issue.
The conversation Thomas witnessed raises concerns about how easy it could be for an average person, or even a church staff member, to have been involved with adoptions that were procurement for child trafficking without realizing it.
Another Stonebriar Church attender, Rita Langworth, said, “When I saw (Ghislaine/Bri) talking about paying for children at the church, I just thought that she was representing an adoption agency, and that she was working with Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota at the church and that she was the contact person for her organization.”
She also said, “It’s concerning because it would be so easy for them to set that up, and then have you be involved in trafficking a child and not realize it.”
The church staff member who discussed the conversation Stonebriar Church Pastor Tony Cammarota had with Ghislaine/Bri, explained that no one at the organizational level of their ministry actually conducted business with Ghislaine/Bri or the other individuals that were associated with her. They stated that the church feels that it has done its part in this matter by cooperating with the undercover investigation that took place at the church.
This person stated, “Whatever may or may not have occurred in regards to this issue was handled by the undercover officers who were on our property managing the investigation into these individuals that said they worked for War Child. We trust that they got to the heart of the matter when they handled it and that the matter has been settled.”
This person also stated, “If the matter is still being investigated, we welcome and appreciate efforts of undercover investigations and trust they will do their job.”
Samuel Clemons, an ordained minister, stated that the issue that happened at Stonebriar needs to be a change agent for the body of Christ. He explained that what happened at Stonebriar could have happened anywhere, and that any pastor could have found themselves in a similar situation, and it’s important that this issue is brought to light.
Clemons said,
“It’s important that we found out about this issue. This is something the body of Christ needs to know about, so we can know how to protect our churches from repeat situations.
We need to find a way to register adoption agencies so people can’t just walk in off the street and do what they did at Stonebriar.
We need to come together to find a solution that everyone follows to protect people from working with unscrupulous individuals that say they are representing an adoption agency, but really aren’t.”
Clemons continued,
“I know there is a solution for this issue, and that we can work together to find ways to protect our churches from ever seeing anything like this happen again.”
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Read about The Trafficking Issue at Stonebriar Church
Stonebriar Church in Frisco, TX
Stonebriar Community Church is an Evangelical traditional style church located in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex at 4801 Legendary Dr, Frisco, TX 75034. The pastor of Stonebriar Church at the time of this incident was founding pastor Chuck Swindoll, who retired in October 2024. Chuck Swindoll is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator, and radio preacher. He founded Insight for Living, and is chancellor emeritus at Dallas Theological Seminary. Jonathan Murphy is the current senior pastor of Stonebriar Church. The church website is: https://www.stonebriar.org
