KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Nine new lawsuits have been filed alleging abuse at a southwest Missouri boarding school where five staffers are facing criminal charges for assaulting students.
The civil suits were filed by former students from California to Massachusetts who attended Agape Boarding School in Stockton from March 2015 through June 2019. 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.
"For nearly three decades, students at Agape Boarding School have experienced emotional, mental, physical and sexual abuse," said Ryan Frazier, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, in a statement to The Star on Friday. "Today, we filed petitions in Cedar County for nine of those victims, to pursue justice for the trauma they endured and to have their voices heard."
