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FILE – Texas Governor Greg Abbott addresses the press outside the West Wing of the White House, February 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signed into law a bill from the state legislature that renders nondisclosure agreements signed by victims of sexual abuse unenforceable.
Senate Bill 835, commonly referred to as Trey’s Law, “invalidates and makes nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements unenforceable if they restrict or limit an individual’s capacity to disclose an incident of sexual abuse.” This was a “significant legislative achievement” approved during the latest Lone Star State legislative session, the governor stated on June 21.
“Survivors can speak out and seek justice—free from fear and restriction,” Abbott, a Republican, wrote on X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter.
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The law is named for Trey Carlock, of Dallas, who died by suicide at the age of 28 in 2019. He was forced to sign an NDA as part of a settlement in his lawsuit against Kanakuk Ministries, a Christian sports camp in Branson, Missouri. The director, Pete Newman, “groomed and sexually abused Trey and countless others,” according to the organization set up in Carlock’s name.
Newman was convicted of sexually abusing at least six minors in 2010 and sentenced to life in prison. Because of statute of limitations, Carlock had to file a lawsuit against Kanakuk when he was 23 years old. He was sexually abused between the ages of 7 and 17 when he was a camper at Kanakuk.
“Kanakuk and its agents forced settlements on ‘John Does’ like Trey, which included restrictive NDAs, silencing victims and covering up what Kanakuk knew about Newman and when (along with concealing other important information from the public),” the Trey’s Law organization said.
Before Carlock’s suicide, he told a therapist “they will always control me, and I’ll never be free.”
One of the bill’s authors, state Sen. Angela Paxton, a Republican from McKinney and wife of beleaguered Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, hailed the bill’s signing as a “major victory for victims of sexual assault and abuse.”
“For too long, powerful institutions and individuals have used NDAs as a tool to cover up abuse and silence the voices of those they’ve harmed. Trey’s Law ensures that survivors can speak their truth — and abusers and those who enable them can no longer hide behind legal loopholes,” Paxton had said in a statement in May.
The bill was championed by Carlock’s older sister, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, who spoke to a committee about its importance.
“After speaking with hundreds of victims who were similarly silenced or abused, I realized this has become standard practice in our civil legal system,” she told local NBC affiliate KXAS.
While NDAs in cases involving business secrets or other civil litigation might make sense, it doesn’t for victims of sexual abuse, Phillips said.
“It silences the victim, prevents them from healing and it keeps these predators and liable institutions hidden from the public,” she stated.
Missouri and Tennessee have also enacted Trey’s Law while Florida and California have similar laws on the books, per the Trey’s Law organization.
