Five new lawsuits have been filed alleging abuse at Agape Boarding School in southwest Missouri, where five staffers face criminal charges for assaulting students.
The lawsuits, which accuse the school of emotional and physical abuse, bring the total number of cases filed against Agape to 19 in the past 16 months.
The civil suits were filed Wednesday in Vernon County Circuit Court by former students from California, Florida, Texas and Mississippi whose time at the Stockton school spanned from 2014 through April of this year. They accuse Agape Boarding School and Agape Baptist Church, which oversees the school, of negligence, infliction of emotional distress and battery by staff and fellow students. Some of the abuse, the suits allege, involved torture and starvation.
The five plaintiffs are requesting jury trials and seeking unspecified amounts in damages.
Agape officials have not responded to repeated requests from The Star for comment on any of the stories it has published about the school.
The lawsuits also allege that Agape violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, committing fraud and deception by misrepresenting or concealing information given to the students and their families. Among the examples cited:
-- Parents were told that Agape does not participate in any form of corporal punishment, chokeholds or physical restraints — other than briefly in situations in which the student may be an imminent threat to himself or others.
But the lawsuits say students “were subject to extreme punishment and torture, which consisted of severe physical and emotional abuse lasting longer than a few minutes without any regard to whether the child was an imminent threat to himself or others.”
-- Agape said it provided excellent meals and did not withhold food, when in reality, students would be subjected to severe restrictions. Students who were sent to “brown town,” the lawsuits say, “were constantly starved and fed only a piece of bread with a single scoop of peanut butter or a tortilla with a scoop of cold refried beans.”
-- School officials told parents that they would provide proper medical care and treatment, yet most students “were denied medical treatment, despite requests, and/or immediately taken off prescription medications and told that ‘God would fix them,’” according to the lawsuits.
The lawsuits also allege that for many years prior to the plaintiffs’ arrival at Agape, there had been multiple incidents of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of students by staff members. Some of those acts resulted in criminal sexual abuse charges and convictions, the lawsuits say.
“Despite this knowledge, Defendant Agape failed to implement safety measures designed to protect its residents from such abuses,” the suits allege.
The lawsuits also note that a previous Agape student had been the victim of repeated sexual assaults that led to another student — who then became a staff member — being convicted of multiple charges of felony child molestation. Agape leaders knew about the sexual abuse, but “failed to adequately investigate or report it or take steps to protect the plaintiffs from further incidents,” the suits allege.
The five plaintiffs filing lawsuits are identified in court documents only by their initials. They range in age from late teens to mid-20s.
All of the plaintiffs allege that they were physically and emotionally abused “by multiple agents, servants, and employees of Defendant Agape.” All lawsuits say that no hotline calls were made to report the abuse.
The new lawsuits come days after a video surfaced that shows what many describe as abuse of a boy at Agape Boarding School in the late 1990s. The video has renewed calls to close the school.
Agape officials did not respond to a request from The Star for comment on the video.
Robert Bucklin, who attended Agape from 2012 to 2017 and filed a lawsuit against the school last August, said it’s way past time for the school to be shut down.
“Nineteen lawsuits, a video of abuse, hundreds of victims coming forward and still nothing from Missouri officials,” said Bucklin, 28, of Michigan. “What will it take for them to stand up for the children in Missouri? Do kids have to start dying?”
Prompted by stories of abuse at several unlicensed boarding schools in Missouri, the General Assembly passed a measure last year that for the first time gives the state oversight over these facilities. Authorities also launched an investigation into abuse allegations at Agape, and in September, five staffers were charged with assaulting students.
The new lawsuits add to a growing list of civil cases filed against Agape and the now-closed Circle of Hope Girls Ranch, another boarding school in Cedar County. Five lawsuits filed against Circle of Hope from September 2020 to March 2021 were settled last year for an undisclosed amount, and three new Circle of Hope lawsuits have been filed this year.
