Missouri AG gets court order to close Agape Boarding School after years of reported abuse

A southwest Missouri judge signed an order late Wednesday to close the embattled Agape Boarding School, but early Thursday said he wanted more information before the order is carried out.

Attorney General Eric Schmitt and the Department of Social Services filed a petition in Cedar County Circuit Court asking the judge to shut down the school, citing concerns about the safety of students. The request for the court injunction Wednesday came after an Agape staff member was placed on the state’s Central Registry for physical abuse, The Star has learned.

Judge David Munton signed the order calling for the immediate shutdown, but early Thursday instructed the Cedar County Sheriff to go to the Agape campus near Stockton to verify that the employee still works there. If the employee does, the order will be executed, Munton said in a court docket entry Thursday morning.

A hearing on the matter was first set for Thursday, but at the request of Agape’s attorney, who is currently out of state, it was rescheduled for Monday. The order is on hold until then.

The Attorney General’s office opposed the delay, according to the court docket, but did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Agape issued a statement Thursday: “Agape remains open. The Court has scheduled a hearing on the State’s request for an Injunction for Monday at 9 a.m. We intend to appear at that hearing and present our case to the Court.”

The unlicensed Christian school has been under state and local investigation for child abuse since early 2021.

The petition Schmitt and DSS filed asked the judge to place the boys in the temporary custody of Missouri’s Children Division “until their legal guardian arrives or refuses to pick up the child, in which case the children would remain in the legal custody of the Children’s Division.”

DSS assured the court that “it has a suitable, temporary emergency placement for the children,” according to the 54-page petition. The agency said it did not believe the parents or legal guardians of Agape students would be available to immediately pick up their children from the Cedar County school.

The attorney general’s action on Wednesday came a day after the Department of Social Services confirmed to The Star that it had substantiated 10 reports of physical abuse at Agape.

The petition stated that DSS on Wednesday added a current Agape staff member to the state’s Child Abuse/Neglect Registry after the agency found by a preponderance of evidence that the staffer committed child abuse at Agape.

The staff member was included in an Aug. 22 census of Agape employees, and according to Schmitt’s office the state has received no information regarding a change in employment status.

“This is the first time that a current Agape staff member has been added to the state’s Child Abuse/Neglect Central Registry,” the petition said.

Missouri law prohibits someone from working at a residential care facility if the person has a substantiated finding of child abuse or neglect or is placed on the Child Abuse/Neglect Central Registry.

The petition said the current staffer’s name was placed on the Central Registry Wednesday because the staffer did not contest DSS’ finding by “yesterday’s appeal deadline.”

“Because the current Agape staff member did not appeal timely, DSS’s findings of child abuse against that current staff member are considered substantiated and final as of today, September 7, 2022,” the petition said. “Agape’s employment of a staff member who is listed on the state’s Child Abuse/Neglect Central Registry presents an immediate health and safety concern for the children residing at Agape.”

The petition also stated: “This new development is sadly consistent with the dark pattern of behavior at Agape previously exposed by the Attorney General’s Office and DSS. Agape’s operation of a residential care facility must cease...”

Prompted by stories of abuse at several unlicensed Christian boarding schools in Missouri, legislators successfully pushed for change in the state law to implement some oversight of those schools. That law, which went into effect in July 2021, requires schools for the first time to register with the state, conduct background checks on employees and undergo health, safety and fire inspections.

The law also gives DSS, the attorney general or the local prosecuting attorney the authority to petition the court to close a facility if there is an immediate health or safety concern for the children.

Rep. Keri Ingle, a Lee’s Summit Democrat who was the first lawmaker to request legislative hearings that led to the passage of the new law, said Agape needs to be closed now.

“I agree with the AG’s office and the Department of Social Services that there is substantial evidence of child abuse that appears to be woven into the institutional fabric of Agape,” she said. “There is no way to ensure children are safe there when the folks operating Agape have multiple findings for child abuse, and so it is imperative that the facility is immediately shut down.”

The Star has investigated Agape and other boarding schools in southern Missouri since late summer 2020. Many men who attended the school in their youth said they were subjected to physical restraints, extreme workouts, long days of manual labor, and food and water withheld as punishment.

And, they said, students endured constant berating and mind games, and some were physically and sexually abused by staff and other youth.

Agape now has roughly 60 students, about half of the population the school had in early 2021 when the Missouri Highway Patrol and DSS launched an investigation into abuse allegations. That investigation led to low-level felony charges against five Agape staff members, accusing them of 13 counts of abusing students.

The Attorney General’s Office, which had been assisting in the southwest Missouri case, recommended charging four times that many staffers — 22 people — with a total of 65 counts of higher-level felonies.

Before Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney Ty Gaither charged the five, Schmitt asked Gov. Mike Parson to remove the Attorney General’s Office from the investigation.

In deciding not to charge the total number of staff members the AG’s office recommended, “Mr. Gaither has expressly rejected the assistance and expertise of the Attorney General’s office, and he has indicated that he does not intend to seek justice for all of the thirty-six children who were allegedly victimized by twenty-two members of the Agape Boarding School staff,” the letter from Schmitt’s office said.

Schmitt also filed a motion to seat a grand jury to hear evidence “regarding the abuse of these 36 children at the hands of the 22 identified suspects and to sign any resulting indictments.” That motion was denied after Gaither wrote a letter to Munton saying that “all matters in this investigation will require my signature and must come from my office.”

Operating in Missouri since 1996, Agape also faces 21 civil lawsuits filed in the past 19 months by former students alleging physical and sexual abuse. Last week, a federal grand jury indicted Agape’s former dean of students, Julio Sandoval, accusing his transport company of violating a court order by taking a California teen to Agape in handcuffs and against his will.

And the school’s longtime doctor, David Smock, faces 15 counts of child sex abuse in Cedar and Greene counties. The Attorney General’s Office is prosecuting 12 of those charges.

Two years ago this month, Circle of Hope Girls Ranch was the first of Cedar County’s four unlicensed Christian boarding schools to close amid abuse allegations. Schmitt’s office charged owners Boyd and Stephanie Householder in 2021 with 99 felony counts of child abuse and neglect, including statutory sodomy, rape and physical abuse and neglect.

Boyd Householder trained at Agape before opening Circle of Hope in 2006.

Two other Cedar County boarding schools have closed since June: Wings of Faith Academy near Stockton — a sister school to Agape — and Legacy Academy Adventures, which is between Stockton and Jerico Springs. A former long-time dean of students at Agape ran that school.

In July, two national groups revoked Agape’s accreditation. The school remains accredited by another organization.

Former students and many Democratic candidates for state and congressional office have been pushing for the school to close. Several have written letters and emails to state officials, the governor’s office and the national groups that had given Agape a stamp of approval.

And in March, the “We Warned Them Campaign” — a grassroots advocacy coalition whose members include survivors of the “troubled teen industry” — wrote a letter to Parson and Schmitt calling for the state to close Agape because of its “use of unsafe and controversial practices on youth in their current care.” More than 20 advocacy groups, including Child USA and the National Youth Rights Association, have signed the letter.