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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 . I watched him choke, slam kids into the floor, and just basically beat the shit out of them. 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. The report found those leaders had chronically mistreated survivors of abuse and spent decades trying to deny responsibility for abuse at individual . Sandoval, Agaps dean of students, worked shifts at the county jail. He says staff would restrain boys on the ground and use pressure points to the point of bruising. In 2021, Paris Hilton, who has also been lobbying in Washington D.C., testified at a Utah Senate committee hearing about her own experience in a troubled-teen facility there, alleging that she was verbally, mentally, and physically abused, involuntarily drugged, and locked in isolation. One deposed student describes attempting to jump off a staircase at Agap in a gesture of suicidal desperation which prompted a staffer to grab him, throw him six feet across the floor, sit on his back, and bash his head into the floor multiple times, leaving him in a pile of snot and blood, while screaming, Is this what you want? (Agap confirms restraining the student, but says it was not a form of abuse but an attempt to prevent harm to the boy.) Another former student said under oath that he was yanked out of bed and slammed to the floor for waking up late, kicked and punched in the balls by former dean of students Julio Sandoval, and kicked in the ribs and face in front of the rest of the school by Bryan Clemensen. 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. The charges come after the Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated allegations of abuse at the boarding school. For more on this story, watch NBC's "Dateline" episode, "Broken Circle". Five months later, authorities raided Circle of Hope, seizing evidence and removing 25 girls from the ranch. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Francis lied, he said, because Robert Graves a Cedar County sheriffs deputy who is on the board of Agaps church and has worked at the school was present for the interview. Jim and Kathy Clemensen a married couple whom people call Brother Clemensen and Maam started Agap in the early 1990s. Award honors influential children's minister. The video was posted Sunday by Robert Bucklin, who says he survived physical and sexual abuse at Agape Boarding School near Stockton. The report, which also examined 10 cases where teenagers had died, noted that there are currently no federal laws that define and regulate residential treatment programs.. Yet, when a social worker visited the school a year ago to follow up on a report that boys had been forced to run outside in the freezing temperatures and sleet, Francis said he claimed hed never seen abuse at Agap. (Agap denies any knowledge of these allegations. They were very detailed and professional. After the state removed students from the school in August, Circle of Hope voluntarily . Clemensen has said the move was necessary because negative publicity has caused enrollment to plummet, and it was not financially feasible to stay open. In response to a detailed list of follow-up questions, Clemensen, through Agaps attorney, says he has never abused any boy in the history of Agap, and denied that restraints were ever used for punishment. That . They held a blood drive, organized a Fourth of July fireworks spectacular, and began holding an annual rodeo. He says he was once ordered to perform 4,500 pushups for cussing and told if I didnt get it done, I couldnt eat my next meal. (Though Breshears says he couldnt do it, Agap denies ever denying a student a meal.) Agape Boarding School is located on a 200-acre ranch in Stockton, Missouri. Im trying to aim for a decent life, you know what Im saying? One student said staffers had branded him with a cross. As soon as Keri Ingle, a Democratic state representative from the Kansas City, Missouri, area and former child welfare investigator, read about the abuse allegations at Circle of Hope Girls Ranch last year, she called for hearings. Carlson said he never witnessed abuse and credited the school with temporarily keeping him off meth and teaching him how to lay tile. 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 . 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. They called the school Agap, meaning Gods love for man. Full Gala Taping. 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. The team at Agape Ranch said they wanted the youth there Friday night to know that they are valued. The next home at The Ranch is for youth aging-out of foster care and the need is urgent. We are faith-based, free, and swift to respond. Where they stop looking to drugs, or their friends, and say to God, I need your help to feel better. If you dont save their souls, it aint going to stick.. 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. Contact Jorden Tramp, Donor Relations & Event Coordinator at. The evening began with a social hour and silent auction and continued with dinner and inspirational testimonies as we opened the next chapter of Agape Ranch. Jennifer says she knows it will take a while to reconnect, and she worries about the psychic scars left by the school shes already noticed that her son hates horses now. Many children in foster care feel unlovable because of the abuse they've suffered all their lives. It also lays out a set of childrens rights, banning corporal punishment and verbal and emotional abuse, and giving youth the ability to call their parents whenever they want. But under state law at the time, the schools didnt have to tell the government they existed, and it took years of complaints before child welfare officials shut down their operations in 2015, and prosecutors charged the owners and a counselor at the facilities with aggravated child abuse. Families looking to adopt are invited to meet, play, and talk to these children, and we need help putting it on. ET): After publication of this article, Cedar County Sheriff James Jimbob McCrary disputed an account by former Agap student Lucas Francis. Trump Melts Down Over Murdoch Admitting Fox Lied About Election Fraud. But he struggled at home. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. ON SEPT. 7, 2022, ATTORNEY GENERAL SCHMITT and the State Department of Social Services (DSS) filed to close Agap. MANY OF THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST Agap staffers are easily found on podcasts and interviews on YouTube. The five employees of the Agape Boarding School near Stockton were charged with a total of 13 third-degree felony assault counts, Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither said. Use tab to navigate through the menu items. One former student, Colton Schrag, claims he was beat up and slammed into walls during his four years at Agape. 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. Lawmakers held hearings and introduced a bill that would give the state some oversight. It could last for days on end. Yet Agaps neighbors insist they never had any idea. 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. The staff often singled out members of Brown Town for abuse, depositions filed by former Agap students suggest. They promoted me I was the youngest person to go red. The last time would be his graduation. That is blasphemous.. Boyd opened the ranch in 2006 as a "school that he claimed could reform rebellious teenage girls," according to NBC News. None of these inspections are required at religious boarding schools. Nathan Papes/Springfield News-Leader/Imagn. The Missouri AG launched a joint investigation with Cedar County authorities. Moments later, Bindley says, Bryan yanked him backward, slamming his chair and his head into the concrete floor. In 1991, Todd Bindley, then 13, moved in. They denied it. The next morning, Breshears made a plan with the other students to start a riot. That evening, as Agaps 150 students and staffers were finishing up dinner, Breshears spotted a fellow conspirator flash a thumbs-up. 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. James Clemensen founded the Agap Boarding School in the early 1990s. NBC News reported on the allegations earlier this . For example, Arkansas allows boarding schools and child welfare agencies operated solely by a religious organization to be exempt from licensing. The Missouri House Committee on Children and Families issued a report in November concluding that there are numerous facilities in the state that have abused vulnerable children in their care, with no state oversight, for many years. Still, it was only a partial picture, based on interviews with former students and information from state officials, because Missouri doesnt keep track of how many religious boarding schools exist in the state. They claim Clemensen was on a power trip and seemed to enjoy brutalizing the kids in his charge. The 57-year-old is currently facing charges of second-degree statutory sodomy . We want to hear it. 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. Trending in solitary confinement, handcuffed them to beds, Alabama Youth Residential Facility Abuse Prevention Act. If you resisted any, they would start kneeing you, hitting you, just mashing your face into the tile or concrete, wherever it was.. Others said they suffered permanent injuries from being disciplined or forced to work long hours of manual labor. STOCKTON, Mo. Mow Grass and Maintain Landscaping. And he said, No, theyre not. He cuffed me up and dropped me back off at Agap. Please enter valid email address to continue. At least three Cedar County Sheriff's Department employees currently or previously work at Agape, including two full-time deputies, one of whom is married to the daughter of Agape's founder, the petition read. 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. Bryan Clemensen was not among those charged. "I would argue Pinehaven is doing a very good job with very difficult kids.". In 1996, Agap moved to a 200-acre ranch in Cedar County, Missouri. Cedar County Prosecutor Ty Gaither asked the governors office for help in his investigation of the Agape Ranch and Boarding School west of Stockton. On Dec. 21, a judge issued a preliminary injunction that will keep him off the list until he receives a full trial (with testimony and subpoenaed witnesses) or until further Order of this Court. In the meantime, Clemensen is prevented from having physical contact with students, but can continue working at the school. That shouldn't be happening., If not, he added, kids are going to wind up losing their lives.. Jim Clemensen, a former California Highway Patrol officer, initially decided to open a group home in Stockton, California, before setting up Agap on an old Air Force base in Othello, Washington. 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

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