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Click here to hear the TJMS on the James Fortune case.

According to the "Houston Chronicle," gospel singer James Fortune is being sued for physical child abuse of his then 4-year-old stepson.

According to a civil lawsuit, Fortune is being sued for $5 million after burning 50% of his stepson's body and leaving him disfigured. Both Fortune and his wife Cheryl, the mother of accuser, are named in the suit.

In the suit, physical abuse occurred after he colored on a table in school. It's claimed that after trying to verbally punish the child and putting him in time out, Fortune began "preparing a scalding bath" to punish his stepson.

Further in the suit, it claims Fortune "instructed (the child) to remove his clothes and began to whip the naked toddler with a switch." He is then accused of putting the child in the scalding water, which left his body extremely burned.

The child was then treated at the Shriners Burn Hospital in Galveston for over two months.

Fortune's stepson has since undergone many operations to repair the skin on his hands, buttocks, legs, and genitals.

The incident occurred  over 11 years ago in 2001. In 2003, James Fortune plead guilty to felony injury to a child, receiving six years deferred adjudication. The child in the claim is now 15 years old. The suit is being filed by his biological father who says the money will be used for plastic surgery to repair his disfigurement.

This morning on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Fortune released an unofficial statement saying, "Trust me when I say that's not all of what happened. the truth will come out eventually."