It was late on April 20, 2007, he said, and the staff at the all-boys boarding school in southwestern Missouri wanted him to confess that he and two other boys were going to try to run away. Stockton is located 130 miles south of Kansas City, a lazy drive down sunbaked roads lined with oak forests and rolling fields. It also taught creationism and that women should be subservient to their husbands, while weaving biblical references into the materials. At first glance, the facility for at-risk and unmotivated boys a Baptist institution in Stockton, Missouri wasnt so terrible. Yet Agaps neighbors insist they never had any idea. Several lawsuits filed on behalf of former students also have named Agape and Circle of Hope. Children as young as four-years-old may have had up to five foster . He says one told local police that he had escaped from a Nazi camp.. (Clemensen denies this happened, but says he considers Bindley one of Agaps top success stories.). ON SEPT. 7, 2022, ATTORNEY GENERAL SCHMITT and the State Department of Social Services (DSS) filed to close Agap. Editors Note: This story, which appears in the January 2023 issue of Rolling Stone, has been updated to include additional details on court cases that had not been decided until after the print deadline. Operators advertise it as a national boarding school for at-risk or unmotivated boys. It was Clemensen who introduced the practice of restraints in the early 2000s, says Ryan Frazier, attorney for Monsees and Mayer PC, which is representing 18 former students in suits against the school. Church was on Wednesday and three times on Sunday. Agape had 132 students 13 months ago, its lawyer, John Schultz said. Gaither says at this point, they dont know if there will be any charges. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time The school states on its website that its staff are trained in proper restraining tactics, which are only used if a child is a threat to others and last for just a few minutes. By the time Askins contacted her, she had been in therapy for years, and was deeply enmeshed in an online community of former Agap and Circle of Hope survivors. She posted Askins video to TikTok, followed by a second post alleging her parents regularly beat her and had forced a student to eat until they threw up, then eat their own vomit. Throughout the 1980s, Kathy and Jim fostered children whose parents were in jail. Other punishments, the former students and staff members said, included forcing boys to stare at a wall for hours, limiting meals to peanut butter sandwiches, and requiring students to haul rocks outside from one pile to another. Agape Ranch will establish a safe environment of. Netflixs Outer Banks Buries Itself in Ridiculous Season 3 . Youre going to be dead or in prison three months after you turn 18.. Just last summer, former students at a pair of Wyoming ranches alleged in an NBC investigation that they had been forced to perform backbreaking manual labor and subjected to traumatic physical and emotional abuse. Mow Grass and Maintain Landscaping. His grandparents sent him to a mental hospital, then to Agap. For secular youth facilities regulated by Missouris social services department, as well as those that have contracts with the state, social welfare agents conduct inspections at least twice a year to review staff training, check compliance with fire and health codes, and make sure employees have background checks and that children get proper medical attention. Regretfully, child abuse and neglect have continued to rise and the work of Agape Ranch is needed now more than ever. I hired Agape to cut the lawn. Clemensen picked the state specifically because of its lack of regulation, he told a reporter in 2002, and said the school would leave Missouri if required to get a license. (Agap denies this.) The only thing it would have done, Smith said of her bill, is require these adolescent facilities to have oversight by our Department of Public Health and Human Services, just like a senior citizen home or a barbershop.. He is living in California with his mother, Jennifer, and attending a public high school. By JIM SALTER. 2023 The Associated Press. And I did get saved.. They promoted me I was the youngest person to go red. Advocates are watching the Agap case, and suggest it illustrates why federal legislation is needed. More than 90% of young adults aging out of the foster system will become homeless, incarcerated, in prostitution, sex trafficked, or dead within three years. Circle of Hope Girls' Ranch was a reformatory boarding school located in Humansville, Missouri.The school opened in July 2006 and was closed in 2020 amid reports and lawsuits filed by former students alleging child abuse, as well as due to an investigation conducted by the Missouri State Highway Patrol.. Before the school's closure, parents, former students, and staff filed multiple reports to . He likes to get in peoples heads.. Since then, former students testified at legislative hearings that they tried to report the abuse at Agape and the now-closed Circle of Hope Girls Ranch for years, but that Cedar County authorities and other officials did not respond to the . He would later set up a transport business to collect teens, hiring off-duty deputies to help him. . The 57-year-old is currently facing charges of second-degree statutory sodomy . (Image: KY3 / Video screengrab) Nineteen former students of an embattled fundamentalist boarding school in Missouri have made new claims of brutal physical and sexual abuse in court filings this month. Hed hoped to get kicked out, which didnt happen. (Householder has denied that any abuse occurred at the ranch.). That was the last straw; they had him committed. (Clemensen says this was a nickname the boys had for an elbow injury, and denies the abuse.) If you're using the Bible or God to justify any of these things, that is sacrilegious. I watched him choke, slam kids into the floor, and just basically beat the shit out of them. The school follows a fundamentalist Baptist belief system, according to a 2002 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, and displayed a photo of the radio evangelist Lester Roloff, who died in a plane crash in 1982. Its just a very scary place to be, Bradney said. Though Ms. Allred's office has spent months soliciting a cash settlement, we were unaware that a suit would be filed. We need people who will financially contribute and volunteer at the event to help give these . Agaps handbook states it has a strict hands-off policy regarding the students, and does not use corporal punishment. The report found those leaders had chronically mistreated survivors of abuse and spent decades trying to deny responsibility for abuse at individual . The Missouri AG launched a joint investigation with Cedar County authorities. They held a blood drive, organized a Fourth of July fireworks spectacular, and began holding an annual rodeo. THORNTON, Colo. Agape Bible Church canceled all church services last weekend after a FOX31 Problem Solvers investigation into whether its head pastor tried to cover up an alleged sexual abuse . Weve had 6,000 students and only a small percent are making these claims, and I could give you the names of many who thank me. Rolling Stone contacted one of them, Matt Carlson, who says he spent the better part of a year at Agap in the early 2000s. I believe the community is aware. (Agap denies any knowledge of these allegations. It is one of the 2 times he saw his family between 2006 and 2010. W Tripadvisor names the world's top 25 beaches, three in the U.S. CDC warns drug-resistant stomach bug a "serious public health threat". They have law-enforcement ties, too. The action galvanized Agap alumni, as well, and they began telling their stories to local media and on podcasts. KANSAS CITY (AP) Maggie Drew's dad sent her to Circle . Schrag says the verbal abuse was constant. Clemensen said the decision to close "is voluntary and solely due to the lack of financial resources to continue caring for the boys.". 3/11/2021. Sick with a heart condition, Jim left the force in 1979 and moved Kathy, Bryan, and his siblings to Stockton, a sweltering agricultural city on the once-mighty San Joaquin River. But he struggled at home. Former students said their communication with parents and local authorities was censored. Agape Boarding School was moving away from the "nonbelievers" in Washington and California and heading east. (361) 742-6330. He would later help stage an uprising as an attempt to get thrown out of the school. We are faced with the horrifying truth that a network of immoral individuals have engaged in what amounts to organized crime against children, Rob Vescovo, the Republican speaker of the Missouri House, wrote in a letter to U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore, urging her to employ the FBI to investigate. By the time he ended up in the Padded Palace, he recalls, I was bleeding all over my head and hands. So he scrawled the words Fuck Agap on the wall using his own blood. More than a decade later, legislators are finally making headway. The curriculum included traditional math and English. He is pleased to hear the Missouri attorney generals office is now investigating Agape Boarding School. But he would soon come to suffer horrifying abuse, he says experiences in line with what at least 18 former Agap students have recently alleged in lawsuits. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. Today, its home to at least 28 such institutions, though some estimates place the number at upward of 100, many of which are still operating under the radar. One student said staffers had branded him with a cross. Clidence said Agap fired him in March 2015 when the school asked employees to sign a nondisparagement agreement, and he refused. Agape Boarding School in Stockton has been the subject of state and local investigations and several lawsuits from former students. Anne Stych June 27, 2022. For more on this story, watch NBC's "Dateline" episode, "Broken Circle". Clemensen has said the move was necessary because negative publicity has caused enrollment to plummet, and it was not financially feasible to stay open. The BBC was given access to their UK boot camp, where they learn how to teach Mormon beliefs and use social media to reach potential converts. In other words, Grandmother can spank the children as can Agap.. In 1992, the Clemensens announced to their troubled wards that they were moving to a promised land of sorts: an old Air Force base six miles outside of tiny Othello, Washington. The former director of Agape Boarding School pleaded with a Cole County judge on Monday to keep himself off the state's central registry of child abuse and . 180 Ministries, a ministry of Teen Challenge, located in Denver Colorado, is a residential substance abuse . That's no secret, as news stories in The Christian. It was time to go. Graves did not respond to a request for comment. In the ensuing chaos, a third pulled the fire alarm. Interested in learning more about the 2023 Legacy Gala? LAST MARCH, BRESHEARS SAYS, he was on kitchen duty when a staffer said some chocolate milk was missing from the fridge, and accused Breshears and several other students of stealing it. In May 2021, the law requiring religious schools to register with the state passed. Once they were done, staff members took away Schrags clothes and bedding, he said, and made him wear only a bathrobe and his boxers for two months. but has gone public in the past year with his . In August, Sandoval was charged with arranging the kidnapping of an emancipated teen in Fresno, California, on behalf of the boys estranged mother, and then having him driven, handcuffed, 27 hours to Agap. It could last for days on end. Earlier this year, Smock, the schools longtime physician, was charged with 12 felony sexual-molestation crimes against those in his care. The staff often singled out members of Brown Town for abuse, depositions filed by former Agap students suggest. At a hearing in the Missouri Legislature on Wednesday, a department official said it has been difficult to substantiate abuse allegations at religious boarding schools due to "a culture of restricted access.". Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot loses reelection bid, Fiery train crash in Greece kills dozens, many of them students, 1894 shipwreck found in Lake Huron, confirming "powerful, tragic story", Garland to face Congress amid ongoing special counsel investigations, FBI chief says agency feels pandemic likely started with Chinese lab leak, House select committee hearing paints China as a strategic antagonist, JetBlue flight forced to abort landing in close call at Logan Airport, Three officers shot, standoff follows in Kansas City, Mo., police say, Vanessa Bryant, family settles claims over Kobe crash site photos for $28.5M, Agape Boarding School, Stockton, Cedar County, Missouri. Passing under the majestic cross affixed to its towering arched entryway, Breshears gazed over a beautiful campus. I just kind of felt like I was on my own, said Schrag, 28, who now works in the oil industry in Texas. Lawmakers held hearings and introduced a bill that would give the state some oversight. Jan 5, 2023 9:58 am. A decent life.. People who have care, custody, and control of those children have that right, as well. Locals says the Clemensens ingratiated themselves by offering tours, and hosting Boy Scout breakfasts and luncheons for the local Methodist group. She thought heavy metal was like witchcraft, he says. Since last year, 19 former students have filed lawsuits against the school, alleging physical and emotional abuse, and in . On Jan. 11, 2023, Agap Boarding School announced it will close its doors, a decision former director Bryan Clemensen says is due to a lack of financial resources. Those details were outlined in motions filed in 19 civil lawsuits requesting that the Cedar County judge overseeing those cases allow . He smacked me in the face with his elbow for saying the f-word. The next home at The Ranch is for youth aging-out of foster care and the need is urgent. A Tri-City Herald story from 1996 said that Franklin County officials ordered the facility to close for code violations over removing and . Boarding schools fleeing abuse claims in other states find 'Promised Land' in Missouri . For example, Arkansas allows boarding schools and child welfare agencies operated solely by a religious organization to be exempt from licensing. These punishments, former students say, were often administered in a small room down a dark staircase, in the basement of the church, with blue padded floors and holes punched in the wall. Paris Hilton's fellow PCS alums said they were stunned to see the heiress, who has amassed 12.6 million followers on Instagram alone, used the hashtag #BreakingCodeSilence in a social media post. 60% of the children in our county are being placed outside of our county due to the lack of foster homes in our community. But many lawmakers are also oblivious to the consequences of lax oversight until there's a scandal. Agape Boarding School is located on a 200-acre ranch in Stockton, Missouri. Soon theyd be in a place where they were untouchable. The campus is also home to Agape Baptist Church. Related: I am proof that money doesnt protect against abuse, Hilton told state legislators, speaking in support of a bill that would better protect children in troubled-youth treatment programs. We are faith-based, free, and swift to respond. Master's Ranch Christian Academy which has had a facility in southern Missouri for more than a decade opened a new location . There were horses, a swimming pool, and a football team. The video follows numerous allegations of abuse against Agape, a Christian reform school for boys, which until a new law in 2021, had virtually no state oversight due to its faith-based status. "If you're using the Bible or God to justify any of these things, that is sacrilegious.". Officials also said even if child protective services found that someone at a religious youth facility abused a child, there were no rules to prevent the person from continuing to work there. To keep order, Agap instituted a military-like hierarchy, indicated by colored shirts that denoted ranks. It was a video secretly recorded at nearby Circle of Hope Ranch that finally moved state authorities to get involved. Operators declined to comment about the investigation. (Photo by Tim Bommel/House Communications) I had a staff member tell me were wasting our time giving you a diploma because youre not even worth the paper its going to cost to print it on, said Schrag. The Kansas City Star reported that the Householders deny all allegations . The team at Agape Ranch said they wanted the youth there Friday night to know that they are valued. I can at least try to show others that you dont have to keep it inside. In September 2021, he charged five Agap staff members with a total of 13 counts of third-degree assault, the lowest degree of felony. None of these inspections are required at religious boarding schools. In Missouri, parents are allowed to discipline their children, he said. Call us today and find long-term recovery. Another describes a staffer holding a pocket knife to his throat. Editors picks (KY3) - Missouri's attorney general is investigating a second Cedar County boarding school. That's because Agap is a religious school, which makes it exempt from the state rules governing secular boarding schools and childrens homes. Agape Boarding School Abuse Lawsuit - Pennsylvania Schools Details: WebFormer students of Agape from Alabama, Texas, and Michigan have filed two civil lawsuits against the Boarding School for multiple charges that include physical, agape ranch abuse Verified 5 days ago By then, Circle of Hope had shut down after the state removed dozens of its students. 1.0 Stephen H. Winter Haven, FL. They led to a front-page story in the Cedar County Republican. But under Missouri law, it was up to Cedar County prosecutor Ty Gaither to file charges. The program markets itself as a Christian school that turns around rebellious boys. Schrags parents said they were unaware of any abuse occurring at the facility; the school had promised close supervision and to redirect his anger in positive ways. Once in the car, Bindley says, they took him to their home. It would be helpful for them to come in early on this one as opposed to come in at a later date, said Gaither. We are gathered here, former students,. Though the area is largely Baptist, Cedar County has a tradition of religious tolerance. We are the best rehab . Mow Grass and Maintain Landscaping. Agape Boarding School, a Christian reform school in Cedar County, is under investigation by local authorities and the Missouri Attorney Generals office. Until 2017, Alabamas Religious Freedom Amendment shielded boarding schools such as the Restoration Youth Academy and its sister facility, the Saving Youth Foundation, from government oversight. Robert Larsson, 89, a preacher and the founder of Pinehaven, gave folksy presentations about how his school improved the lives of children, who spent their days at the ranch wrangling calves, shoveling manure and learning Bible verses. Meanwhile, the husband-and-wife founders of Circle of Hope, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, face a combined 99 charges that include child abuse and neglect, sex crimes and other counts. Staff members would jump on you, said Schrag. Full Gala Taping. Lucas Francis, 19, said he regularly witnessed staff members slam boys into walls and onto the ground when he attended Agap from 2017 to 2020. "Pinehaven has had challenges over the years, but so has everyone," Montana Family Foundation President Jeff Laszloffy said at a 2019 hearing. I was sheltered, Breshears says. The schools are unrelated and are not affiliated with any particular Christian denomination. The state has been fighting to close Agap ever since. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. For the first time, religious schools would be required to register with the state and undergo inspections; the attorney general would now have authority to close down facilities that posed a threat to students. Many of the kids my parents took in would be back six months later in worse shape, Bryan says. Breshears spotted a baseball bat poking out of an equipment bag. State regulates church boarding schools after abuse allegations. Hilton tweeted to Missouri's attorney general and governor on June 21. South Carolina is a possibility; it still does not require religious schools to register with the state. Among other things, the new state law allows state or local authorities to petition the court for closure of a facility if children's safety or health are believed to be in immediate danger. So they constructed wooden bunks on the second floor of their modest home, set up cubicles in the garage, and obtained work booklets produced by Accelerated Christian Education. Mrs. Vicki Loeffler & Mrs. Rodney Johnson, DDS, Faithful Witness Photography, Photographer. Whatever the case, Clemensen has many allies where it perhaps counts the most: in the community. KANSAS CITY, Mo. Missouri's Agap Boarding School will close its doors due to a lack of finances, school officials say but the . 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