Missouri Highway Patrol investigating former Agape student’s gang rape claim, mom says
With five Agape staff members now facing physical abuse charges, authorities are turning their attention to allegations of sexual assault at the southwest Missouri boarding school.
Kathleen Britt, whose son Jason attended the school for five months in 2010, said a Missouri Highway Patrol supervisor told her last week that the agency is examining his case. Earlier this year, Jason Britt told a patrol investigator that he was gang raped in 2010 by five staff members at Agape Boarding School, some of them top leaders.
“The good news is that they said they’re going to investigate,” Britt told The Star Monday. “There have been ongoing and past sexual assaults at this place. … I want as many eyes on this investigation as I can have.”
The patrol confirmed to The Star late last week that the agency is not finished with its examination of the unlicensed school in Cedar County.
“The case into allegations made by current students at the Agape Boarding School has been completed and turned over to the Cedar County Prosecuting Attorney,” said Capt. John Hotz, a patrol spokesman, in an email to The Star. “The investigation into additional allegations by past students of the school is ongoing.”
The Star wrote about Britt’s allegation of gang rape in mid-June. Another former student accused five staff members — one of them also named in Britt’s alleged assault — of a similar gang rape in 2009.
Dozens of former Agape students interviewed by The Star said that for decades there has been a deep-rooted culture of sexual violence against boys at the school that no one talks about. That violence, they said, was committed by both students and staff members.
Four lawsuits have been filed this year alleging sexual abuse by students. Two of those who filed suit said they were sexually abused by staff as well. One former student settled with the school several years ago, a decade after the staff member who attacked him was convicted of first-degree sodomy.
Last week, Cedar Cedar County Prosecutor Ty Gaither received criticism for not filing any charges regarding sexual assault. But Gaither told The Star he wasn’t presented any cases recommending charges for sexual abuse. The patrol’s investigation centered on physical abuse of current and recent students.
One former student’s allegations of physical and sexual abuse while at the school reportedly were included in the patrol’s investigation that was presented to Gaither. But no charges of sexual abuse were recommended by the patrol.
“We reviewed all the reports, all the interviews,” Gaither told The Star. “We have filed what are the appropriate charges in this case.”
Among those charged last week were at least two former students who later became staffers. One of those is Agape’s medical director, Scott L. Dumar, who was charged with four counts of third-degree assault. The other is Seth Duncan, son-in-law of David Smock, a Stockton doctor who for years has provided medical care for Agape students. Duncan was charged with five counts of third-degree assault.
The others charged are Christopher R. McElroy (one count), Everett L. Graves (one count) and Trent E. Hartman (two counts).
As the patrol’s investigation into physical abuse was ongoing, Jason Britt told The Star he was brutally assaulted and described his attack as “evil” and being “like a group of savages going after their prey.”
But when he spoke to the patrol’s investigator he said he feared nothing would come out of his case.
“It seemed like he wrote me off before he even heard my story,” Britt said.
In Missouri, there is no statute of limitations in criminal court for rape or attempted rape, sodomy or attempted sodomy.
Gaither said he was aware of the case and had received a call from Kathleen Britt last week.
“We will review the investigations and the facts and evidence presented to us,” Gaither said. “And we will file charges based upon the law and evidence and not based upon what’s in the newspaper. I’ll have the facts and law in front of me, the circumstances.”
Kathleen Britt said it was tough to see how her son was treated by the patrol earlier this year. She filed a complaint about the way his case was handled and called the office of the patrol’s top leader last week.
She’s glad to see the renewed activity in her son’s case.
“I’m concerned about what’s happened in the past,” Britt said. “But I’m hopeful at this point that the patrol is going to step up and get it done.”
