Judge rules on boarding school owners’ request to get out of jail on abuse charges
The owners of Circle of Hope Girls Ranch will remain in jail pending trial on charges that they abused students at their Christian boarding school, a judge ruled Tuesday.
David R. Munton, presiding judge for the 28th Judicial Circuit, denied bond for Boyd and Stephanie Householder, who have been in custody in Vernon County since March on 100 charges including rape, sodomy and physical abuse. All but one of the counts are felonies.
The Householders pleaded not guilty to the charges at their arraignment Monday in Cedar County Circuit Court in Stockton, Missouri.
Tuesday’s bond hearing was held in Vernon County Circuit Court in Nevada. The couple, who closed Circle of Hope near Humansville after girls were removed during an investigation last summer, later moved to Nevada.
Their next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 9 in Cedar County.
At the Householders’ preliminary hearing last month, witnesses gave numerous accounts of alleged abuse inside Circle of Hope. Among the examples were putting students in painful restraints, swatting them, withholding food as punishment and placing one girl in a neck brace for not holding her head up while being forced to stand and face a wall.
Former students told authorities that the Householders said social workers and law enforcement officers were “of Satan’s work” and could not be trusted.
Boyd Householder, 72, faces 78 felony charges, including six counts of second-degree statutory rape; nine counts of second-degree statutory sodomy; six counts of sexual contact with a student; 55 counts of abuse or neglect of a child; and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. He also is charged with one count of second-degree child molestation, a misdemeanor.
Stephanie Householder, 56, is charged with 21 felonies, including 11 counts of abuse or neglect of a child and 10 counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
The Householders opened Circle of Hope in 2006 after Boyd Householder trained at Agape Boarding School in Stockton. That school is currently under investigation by the attorney general’s office for allegations of abuse.
The Householders’ attorney, Adam Woody of Springfield, asked the court to release Stephanie Householder on her own recognizance pending trial. Woody said Boyd Householder was entitled to “reasonable bail” and asked that his bond be set at $10,000 cash or corporate surety. He said Boyd Householder would be willing to wear an ankle monitor.
Woody said in the motion that his client was no threat to any of the alleged victims or witnesses in the case and was not at risk of fleeing.
“Defendant has a clean criminal history, is a United States Military Veteran, is a church-going Christian man, and has dozens of character witnesses prepared to vouch for him,” Woody wrote in the motion. “He no longer owns the Circle of Hope Girls Ranch where the charges allegedly occurred and has no contact with any minors. It cannot be determined that he is a danger to the community.”
Prosecutors have argued that the Householders were a flight risk because they were receiving tuition payments from a number of students and getting donations from churches to subsidize their ranch. They said that meant the couple had the resources to flee.
The judge also on Tuesday rejected prosecutors’ motion that Woody be disqualified from representing the Householders. Prosecutors argued that Woody’s representation of both defendants was a conflict.
“Because of this dual representation, Mr. Woody cannot advise his clients in a fair and reasonable manner,” prosecutors said in their motion. “Such a clear conflict of interest greatly undermines the search for truthful testimony and threatens the integrity of our judicial system.”
Woody denied that any conflict existed, saying that he’d had separate conversations with both Householders explaining that they had the right to separate lawyers and they chose to keep him.
“Further,” he wrote in his response to prosecutors’ motion, “it is important to note that the State is the party moving to disqualify, and neither Defendant nor his wife have moved to disqualify counsel.”
