Ex-MO boarding school leader can’t afford travel to CA trial. So US Marshals will pay
_fitted.png "Julio Sandoval was dean of students at Agape Boarding School in Cedar County before leaving to become director of ABM Ministries’ Lighthouse Christian Academy near Piedmont.")
The U.S. Marshals Service must either arrange transportation or foot the bill for a former Missouri boarding school leader to travel to California for his criminal trial next month, a federal judge has ordered.
Julio Sandoval, who faces charges alleging his company illegally transported a minor in handcuffs from Fresno to Agape Boarding School in 2021, asked the court to order the Marshals Service to pay for his travel, saying he couldn’t afford it.
“Mr. Sandoval currently is employed at a Ford Dealership, where he works on car transmissions; in that capacity, he makes approximately $4000 per month,” said Sandoval’s motion requesting help. “Mr. Sandoval does not have any significant savings. Moreover, Mr. Sandoval has a very large family that he is financially responsible for.
“In total, he has 9 children, 6 of which are under the age of 18. Mr. Sandoval has many recurring monthly payments. His car payment, phone bill, internet bill and weekly groceries account for nearly all of his earnings.”
U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston granted Sandoval’s request last month. His trial is scheduled to start Aug. 19 in the U.S. District Court in Fresno.
Federal law allows a judge to direct the U.S. Marshal to provide transportation for an out-of-custody defendant to attend a required court appearance. Before issuing such an order, the judge must find that the defendant is financially unable to pay for transportation.
If that determination is made, the U.S. Marshal must arrange for the transportation or furnish the cost, along with providing subsistence expenses incurred in traveling to court.
Sandoval, 44, was dean of students at Agape Boarding School in Cedar County and later the director of Lighthouse Christian Academy in Wayne County. Both boarding schools have closed amid allegations of abuse, and he now lives in Batesville, Arkansas, court documents show.
Grand jury indictment
In August 2022, Sandoval was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that the transport company he operated — Safe, Sound, Secure Youth Ministries — took a minor against his will from California to Agape Boarding School. Agape had used Sandoval’s transport company to pick up kids — sometimes in the middle of the night — and deliver them to the Stockton school.
The indictment said Sandoval and Shana Gaviola, the boy’s mother, violated a protective order prohibiting Gaviola from having any contact with her son or blocking his movements. The son had requested emancipation from Gaviola and obtained a domestic violence protection order against her from the Fresno County Superior Court.
Despite the restraining order, Gaviola told Sandoval’s transport company where to find her son, and in August 2021 he was plucked from a business in Fresno, handcuffed and forced into a car, remaining handcuffed for more than 24 hours while he was driven to Agape Boarding School, according to court documents.
He was then held at the boarding school until his father was able to get him out after about eight days.
Sandoval pleaded not guilty and was released on a personal recognizance bond pending trial. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Sandoval also faces a civil lawsuit in connection with the case, filed in August 2023 by the California teen.
Sandoval’s boarding school career
Sandoval began working at Agape in 2010, rising through the ranks to become dean of students, the position he held in February 2021 when the Missouri Highway Patrol launched an investigation into abuse and neglect of students at the school.
He left Agape that fall in the weeks after five staff members were charged with abusing students. Sandoval wasn’t among them.
He then became director of Lighthouse Christian Academy near Piedmont, a town of about 1,900 in the remote Ozark foothills of southeast Missouri.
Operated by ABM Ministries, Lighthouse was one of more than a dozen unlicensed boarding schools in Missouri. Such facilities came under intense scrutiny after abuse allegations at Cedar County’s Circle of Hope Girls Ranch were revealed in 2020 and an investigation by The Star found that problems at unlicensed religious schools existed across the state. Several of the schools have since closed, including Circle of Hope in late 2020 and Agape in early 2023.
Lighthouse Christian Academy was shut down in March 2024 after its owners were charged with kidnapping a student for allegedly locking her in a room. Those charges were later dismissed.
Sandoval’s son, Caleb, a staffer at the school who was charged with abusing a student, pleaded guilty last July and was sentenced to five years’ probation.
Other legal problems
Sandoval is dealing with other legal issues as well. He’s been accused in multiple lawsuits of abusing boarding school students and has an ongoing case in Cole County involving a substantiated child abuse/neglect finding against him in 2023 by the Department of Social Services.
He appealed the finding and the case has been repeatedly continued, with the next hearing scheduled for Aug. 4. In the petition challenging the finding, Sandoval’s attorney wrote that his client “denies that he abused or neglected the minor children at any time.”
Kansas City attorney Rebecca Randles, who represents several former Agape students who have filed lawsuits alleging abuse by Sandoval and other staffers, was surprised to hear that the Marshals Service had been ordered to pay the costs of getting him to his trial.
“It’s the ultimate irony that an individual who brags about the number of children he’s transported across the United States cannot pay for his own transport because of his children,” she said.
She added, however, that “this is a man who has engaged in behaviors that appear to be illegal.”
“In that instance, whatever it takes for justice to be served, that’s what should happen.”
This story was originally published July 8, 2025 at 10:46 AM.
