LITHONIA, Ga.,None — The wife of megachurch pastor Bishop Eddie Long has withdrawn her petition to divorce her husband.
Channel 2 Action News has learned the petition by Vanessa Long was withdrawn Monday.
Vanessa Long filed for divorce in December against her husband saying, "After a great deal of deliberation and prayer, I have decided to terminate my marriage to Bishop Eddie L. Long."
The December filing came after much back-and-forth with Vanessa Long, saying she was going to divorce her husband, then taking it back and later putting the divorce back on the table.
So far there has been no word from Eddie Long or his wife about withdrawing their divorce.
In June, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church denied rumors that his wife was moving out. The previous month, Eddie Long reached a settlement with four men who accused him of sexual abuse. Former church members Maurice Robinson, Anthony Flagg, Jamal Parris and Spencer LeGrande filed lawsuits against him in September 2010, saying he coerced them into sexual acts with gifts and money. They said some of the encounters were on lavish trips across the globe.
Parris and LeGrande said they got caught up in the lifestyle Eddie Long gave them access to.
"A predator, they have a certain pattern that they all do. And for him it started with, 'Let me captivate you,'" Parris told Channel 2's Jodie Fleischer in an exclusive interview.
Eddie Long has maintained his innocence against the claims.
"I have never in my life portrayed myself as a perfect man, but I am not the man that's being portrayed on the television. That's not me," he told his congregation shortly after the lawsuits.
In the same sermon, he vowed to fight the allegations. In legal documents, he admitted to buying gifts and traveling with his accusers, his "spiritual sons," but he said there was no sexual contact. He settled the suits for an undisclosed amount of money.