Israel Ford, the Ohio pastor who went viral for introducing his second wife to his congregation, is now accused of years of sexual abuse by his stepdaughter, Kourtney Jones.
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Jones is the daughter of Ford’s first wife, Pastor Lydia Ford. She laid out her allegations in a series of Facebook posts starting October 27, two days after video of the church announcement began spreading online. In those posts she called her stepfather “a predator, an abuser, and a false prophet” and said she had kept what happened to her secret for six years.
The viral moment came during an October 25 service at LifeWorks Church, the Cleveland area ministry Ford founded in 2009 and leads alongside Lydia. Lydia took the microphone and introduced Minister Shakayla Ford, formerly Shakayla Talley, as her “sister in marriage,” telling the congregation that Shakayla and her husband had been married for nearly three years. Ford shared the clip on Facebook with a caption calling the belief that a man should have only one wife unbiblical, and he cited Exodus 21:10.
Jones wrote that her mother married Israel Ford in June 2013 after nine months of dating, while both of them were still married to other people. Jones and her twin sister were 11 years old.
She alleges Ford began showing sexual interest in her when she was 12. She says he commented on her body, told her how beautiful she would be as an adult, lay in her bed while she napped, kissed her and forced her to tell him she loved him. At 13, she says, it escalated. She wrote that he came into her room at night wearing only underwear, asked her about sex and woke her up to force her to touch him. “I would freeze up, and dissociate,” she wrote.
Jones alleges the worst night came when she was 15. Her grandmother was hospitalized after a car accident, and Jones says Ford convinced her mother and sister to stay overnight at the hospital. She wrote that it was the first time Ford attempted to rape her and that she kicked, screamed and scratched until she got away. She says she told him that night that he had no business being a pastor. “I made it out that night, I was lucky to be younger and stronger,” she wrote. “But that day changed everything for me.”
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After that, Jones says, Israel Ford became more aggressive and possessive. She says he would fight with her for what felt like hours in the middle of the night and touch her when no one was looking, including at church with her mother a few feet away. She also says he isolated the family from relatives, made them cut off friends who did not like him and told them they would not make it to heaven without him.
Read the full court ruling below.
Jones says the abuse continued until she left the house at 17 and never came back. Two years later she told her sister everything. When her mother was confronted, Jones says, Lydia revealed that Ford had spent years telling her that Jones was too touchy with him, that she was attracted to him and that Lydia needed to “watch out” for her. Jones says her mother believed Israel Ford, and she has not spoken to Lydia in six years.
None of Jones’ sexual abuse allegations have been tested in court, and no criminal charges or police investigation tied to them have been reported. Israel Ford does have a criminal conviction involving another of Lydia’s daughters.
In 2019, a Cuyahoga County judge found Ford guilty of misdemeanor domestic violence over a January 15, 2018 incident in which he beat his 17 year old stepdaughter with a belt. Court records identify the girl only by her initials, K.C. Jones says that stepdaughter is her twin sister.
According to the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals ruling that upheld the conviction, the teen testified that the Fords had recently found inappropriate content on her Snapchat and that her mother whipped her with a belt as punishment. To take the heat off herself, she told her mother that Ford had been texting his former wife. She testified that Ford was furious and ordered her upstairs for a “whooping.” When she refused, she said, he pushed her to the floor and held her down with his knee on her neck. She grabbed a knife from the kitchen to defend herself, then put it down in the sink. In her statement to Euclid police, she said Ford slammed her into a kitchen wall, threw her around the living room, pulled her to the ground by her hair and beat her all over her body with a belt.
She also testified that Ford kept her home from school the next day, telling her she was “not going to school to be telling [her] teachers about this.” Three days later, her aunt took her to the hospital and to police. An officer photographed bruises on her shoulder, arm, legs and thigh. A county children’s services worker described bruises on her arm that looked like four fingerprints left by someone grabbing her hard.
Latesha McFarland, a woman who knew the Fords, testified that the couple told her they “jumped” the teen and “beat her up really bad like she was a girl on the street.”
Israel Ford argued on appeal that he was disciplining his stepdaughter. The appeals court rejected that argument in September 2020, writing that his conduct “significantly exceeded corporal punishment.” Ford did not testify at trial, but at sentencing he denied putting his knee on her neck, pushing her down or slamming her into the wall. The trial judge acquitted both Israel and Lydia Ford of more serious child endangering charges, ruling that prosecutors had not proven the teen suffered serious physical harm.
The same indictment included 11 counts against both Fords, including robbery and assault, over a separate incident involving McFarland. Both pleaded guilty to several offenses under a plea deal, with Israel’s pleas including unlawful restraint, assault, unauthorized use of property and intimidation of a crime victim or witness. He was sentenced to 120 days in county jail. Jones alleges the Fords had been in a relationship with another woman years before Shakayla. She says the incident that led to those charges began when Lydia demanded proof that Ford had ended things with that woman, and that Lydia beat the woman while Ford held her down.
Jones expanded on her claims during an October 28 appearance on the “All Things Theology” podcast. She alleged that the Fords groomed Shakayla, who she says joined the church when she was around 20 or 21. Shakayla has said she joined LifeWorks in 2018 and went from being Ford’s “spiritual daughter” to his wife. Another woman has since posted online alleging that Ford groomed her as well. Her account has not been verified.
Israel Ford, Lydia and Shakayla appeared on Larry Reid Live on October 27 to talk about their marriage and even the possibility of a third wife, but Reid did not ask them about the allegations. By the next day, Ford’s Facebook profile had been deactivated. During an October 30 livestream, Lydia said the family knew about the allegations and that they “are not true,” but added that they would not address them further. Neither Ford nor LifeWorks Church has responded to requests for comment from outlets covering the story.
In an October 29 post, Jones thanked people for their support and answered those questioning her motives. “My motive is and will always be protecting God’s children,” she wrote. She has urged other women with stories about Israel Ford to come forward.
