Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Mother who alleges son was gang raped at Christian boarding school files wrongful death lawsuit
Christian Post ^ | October 25, 2023 | Leonardo Blair

Posted on 10/25/2023 11:47:51 PM PDT by Morgana

n Idaho mother who says she trusted a now-shuttered Christian boarding school in Missouri to rehabilitate her son struggling with behavioral issues has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the abuse and brutal gang rape by staff members he suffered at the school caused his early death last year at the age of 29.

The mother, Kathleen Britt, said in court documents cited by The Springfield News-Leader that she sent her late son, Jason Britt, to the Agape Boarding School in Stockton, Missouri, in 2009 so he could experience a "safe, kind and Christian environment free from drugs and alcohol."

What Jason Britt experienced was something like "a concentration camp or torture colony cloaked in the guise of religion," the court documents state.

In an interview with The Kansas City Star when he was 27, Jason Britt told the publication that only months after he arrived at the school as a 16-year-old, several staff members held him face down on the floor while three members of the group took turns raping him with a broomstick.

"The best way I can describe it is like a group of savages going after their prey," he said. "I think it was just evil. I think they were trying to humiliate me in a way that I wouldn't recover from, that would break my spirit."

Prior to the school being shut down earlier this year, Jason Britt claimed students at the school would remain in danger if authorities did not act to address the abuse.

"If they don't take this seriously, a lot of kids are going to end up right when they turn into an adult being incredibly messed up psychologically," he told The Star. "It's been a battle for me for 10 years, and it's still a battle every day."

After removing her son from the school about a year after he began attending, Kathleen Britt said he turned to weightlifting and abused steroids to ensure he wouldn't experience abuse similar to what he suffered at the school again.

That move compounded his physical and mental health issues stemming from the abuse he suffered at the school, including PTSD.

Jason Britt died in February 2022 from organ failure triggered by his steroid use.

The lawsuit contends that even before Jason Britt left Idaho, Agape staffers showed up at his then-girlfriend's home in 2009 in the middle of the night and zip-tied his hands before shuttling him away to the airport. When he got to Agape, they shaved his head.

Among those named in the lawsuit are the school's former dean of students, Julio Sandoval, several staff members, and Cedar County Sheriff James "Jimbob" McCrary.

Kathleen Britt alleges that after she became aware of the abuse at the school, she alerted the sheriff in Cedar County, where the school is located, but officials failed to act, even when boys would run away from the school and complain to police.

More than a dozen other former students have already settled lawsuits alleging they were abused at the school. But when it closed in January this year, Bryan Clemensen, Agape's former director, said they closed due to a "lack of financial resources."

"For the past 30 years Agape Boarding School has provided over 6,000 boys with an opportunity to get their life back on track and toward a bright future," he said in a press release.

"Agape has made the decision to stop providing services to the boys in its care effective January 20, 2023. Agape's focus is on getting the boys who remain in the program safely transitioned to their parents or to foster care, other group homes or residential programs. Agape's decision to close is voluntary and solely due to the lack of financial resources to continue caring for the boys."

Representatives for the shuttered school did not immediately respond when contacted for comment by The Christian Post on Wednesday.

Rebecca Randles, Kathleen Britt's attorney, told KMBC that the abuse carried out by school staffers on students is some of the "worst things I've ever heard."

"[A]nd I've done sexual abuse cases for 30 years," Randles said. "His [Jason's] choices were self-destructive choices from the time he left Agape, and those choices led to his death."


TOPICS: Current Events; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: agape; steroids
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-30 last
To: metmom
the way the Catholic hierarchy dealt with it

So LEARN from that.

Don't try to cover it up, or whine about "hit pieces smearing non-Catholic Christians" when it happens in (metaphorically) your house. Which is worse: that the staff at an apparently protestant school committed rape of a boy, or that some wretched catholic had the insufferable gall as to report on it?

I sincerely do not care where it happens. Punish the guilty (and that includes guilty of false accusation), protect the innocent. Find it, expose it, destroy it root and branch. Be absolutely brutal; in a few respects, The Inquisition had the right idea.

Anything less is contributing to the cover-up.

And that would constitute being part of the problem.

Don't be part of the problem.

BTW, FWIW: Because reasons, I'm a certified, trained, vetted, "mandatory reporter". I take this stuff very seriously.

21 posted on 10/26/2023 10:39:39 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: metmom

Post # 20 is primarily a rant against Catholic sacramental theology and ecclesiology. It’s irrelevant to the present discussion. I’m simply not going to go down that rabbit hole with you.


22 posted on 10/26/2023 10:42:49 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: NorthMountain

Parents need to home school their kids. Every week a new story comes out about kids being molested in the public schools and more and more by female teachers.

The kids attending school are terrible too. The adults at the school can’t control them. Why do this to your kid? Home school them.


23 posted on 10/26/2023 12:59:13 PM PDT by Morgana ( Always a bit of truth in dark humor. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: piasa; Morgana; metmom
Caution is in order both ways...

A very astute post. Thank you. Child abuse is utterly depraved and can ruin or end a victim's life. And false accusations are utterly evil and can ruin or end the accused's life. There must be a search for facts and due process.

24 posted on 10/26/2023 3:18:23 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde; NorthMountain

The state ordered the school shut down so I think we are past “ false accusations”.
Plus SVU detectives are pretty good and figuring out when a rape victim is lying or telling the truth, even a troubled teen.
In this case it was not that the kids did not make police reports it was that the local police worked at the facility and were paid to bring back runaways. The kids were not believed so CPS was not contacted. The kids also reported abuse to the school’s doctor who did not report abuse. He is on trial now as well for sex abuse and not reporting abuse. His license is on hold until after the trial. His name is David Smock read about him here:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4041219/posts

North Mountain what was it you said about being a mandated reporter? Please tell us what happens to Mandated Reporters when they don’t report?

What it comes down to is this was a big old mess. No one was minding the store and things went off the rails.

A lot of this could have been prevented if only certain people had done their jobs.

Speaking of mandated reporters NM..The only ones at that school were the cops who sometimes worked there and the “good” doctor. The staff were not. that is another thing that needs to change about these type of schools. They all need to be mandated reporters so if they are caught not reporting child abuse they get a broomstick shoved up their ass by the legal system.


25 posted on 10/26/2023 4:19:18 PM PDT by Morgana ( Always a bit of truth in dark humor. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Morgana
In an interview with The Kansas City Star when he was 27, Jason Britt told the publication that only months after he arrived at the school as a 16-year-old, several staff members held him face down on the floor while three members of the group took turns raping him with a broomstick.

I am not saying this did not happen.

But I will say that even after a couple of years there would be physical evidence.

So, did he go to a doctor?

26 posted on 10/26/2023 4:22:46 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Keep America Beautiful by keeping Canadian Trash Out. Deport Jennifer Granholm!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Albion Wilde
And false accusations are utterly evil and can ruin or end the accused's life.

Which is why posting allegations as if they were fact is not the best course of action.

27 posted on 10/26/2023 5:04:45 PM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Morgana
North Mountain what was it you said about being a mandated reporter? Please tell us what happens to Mandated Reporters when they don’t report?

What I said is that I am one, which means I have a LEGAL as well as moral and ethical obligation to report abuse or suspected abuse that I might become aware of. Failure to do so can, IIRC, result in both civil and criminal action against a mandatory reporter.

28 posted on 10/26/2023 6:05:02 PM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: metmom
posting allegations as if they were fact is not the best course of action.

Thankfully, that is not what I have done.

29 posted on 10/26/2023 7:58:23 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Nifster

I’ll weigh in with, there is no such thing as public school.

It is in our day, Government school. Run by government, financed by government, overseen by the largest and most dangerous government in the land, the Federal Government.

Does government care about your children, any more than they care about you? They are raising compliant tax slaves. Confiscatory taxation is what keeps government running against everything our founders found important in life. Those running Government are far more interested in financing Yew Crane, and having an open border than they are in living under a Constitution that would shut down all of the craziness put upon the citizenry.

It’s been a long time since I have talked about the 100 most dangerous men in America, but I won’t pass up this opportunity. The US Senate should have been dumped with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution. We already had 435 Representatives of “We the People”.

The Constitution authorizes a two year term for Representatives. The Seventeenth Amendment does not change the term of the Senate Representatives to two years. Thus in my opinion, the Seventeenth should never have been ratified. It should be nullified by as many States as are able to nullify which would be a portion of those with Republican Legislatures and willing Governors.

Restore the Tenth Amendment to it’s rightful place as the protector of State sovereignty.


30 posted on 10/27/2023 2:14:02 AM PDT by wita (Under oath since 1966 in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-30 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson