Inmate charged with severely beating imprisoned cult leader Victor Barnard, causing brain damage

The onetime cult leader in prison for raping girls suffered brain and lung injuries, broken bones.


Paul Walsh
Minneapolis Star Tribune
MARCH 30, 2017

Victor Barnard, the onetime religious cult leader serving a 30-year term for sexually assaulting two girls from among his followers, was severely beaten in his prison cell in east-central Minnesota in early January by another inmate who said the attack was divinely inspired, according to charges filed Thursday.

Violent career criminal Shane M. Kringen, 44, was charged with first-degree assault in Chisago County District Court in connection with the Jan. 8 attack.

When authorities led Kringen from that area of the prison, he explained that he "was doing God's work," the charging document read.

One of Barnard's attorneys, Marsh Halberg, said Barnard is now at another prison and still has difficulties from the assault.

"My law partner Dave Risk and I went to visit Mr. Barnard recently at Oak Park Heights," Halberg said. "He did not recognize us and called us by other names. ... He had no memory of the months held in custody in Pine County [jail] and had hearing and vision problems when trying to communicate with us."

Halberg said Barnard now resides in the medical wing, which is separate from the traditional prison section.

Injuries include collapsed lung

According to the criminal complaint:

Video from inside the Rush City prison showed Kringen enter the 55-year-old Barnard's cell shortly after Barnard went in. Kringen left about a minute later.

A corrections officer went in during a security check and found Barnard bleeding. He was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul with broken bones in his face, rib fractures, facial cuts, traumatic brain injury, a collapsed lung and respiratory failure.

On Jan. 24, Kringen was read his rights by an investigator and declined to give a statement. A week later, prison officials confiscated a letter Kringen had written that acknowledged attacking Barnard. It said he stopped once Barnard was unconscious.

Barnard and his followers moved from the Twin Cities to rural Pine County in the 1990s to establish their own "utopia" — a self-sufficient community where members raised their own food, sewed their own clothes and funded the operation with a string of local businesses.

Barnard coaxed families in the River Road Fellowship to send their daughters to him, promising that the "maidens" would live lives of prayer and purity. Years later, the two girls turned to Pine County authorities for help.

Inmate's violent history

Kringen, whose last address outside of prison was in Crookston, has been in trouble with the law for violent offenses for virtually his entire life, including in western Wisconsin. His most serious convictions in Minnesota have been for third-degree criminal sexual conduct, numerous acts of assault, burglary, drug possession, criminal property damage and drunken driving.

He's currently incarcerated on convictions in Polk County for drug possession and witness tampering. Corrections records currently list his release date as Aug. 7, 2019, but a conviction for assaulting Barnard would change that.

In neighboring Wisconsin in August 2010, Kringen led St. Croix County sheriff's deputies on a high-speed chase from Hammond toward Hudson. He rammed county squad cars before he fled on foot and was apprehended by a K-9 officer. He was convicted and given a sentence of more than 10 years.

In 2001, he was convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer in St. Croix County and given a five-year term.

http://www.startribune.com/inmate-charged-with-severely-beating-victor-barnard/417697833/

Sex crime victim from ‘maidens’ cult files lawsuit targeting River Road Fellowship elders who relocated to Spokane

Thomas Clouse
Spokesman
January 25, 2017


This June 18, 2016, booking photo provided by the Pine County Jail in Minnesota shows Victor Barnard. On Monday, June 20, 2016, a judge set bail for Barnard, a religious sect leader who is charged with sexually abusing girls at a secluded compound in rural Minnesota. (AP)

Making of a Maiden

• 1996: Lindsay Tornambe’s parents first take her to River Road Fellowship. She is 9 years old.
• 1998: Tornambe, her parents and two sisters, move to fellowship property in Finlayson, Minnesota, about 100 miles north of Minneapolis.
• Summer 2000: Cult leader Victor Barnard gave a “teaching” where he asked the parents to “sacrifice” their first-born daughters.
• July 23, 2000: Tornambe’s parents drop her off at Shepherd’s Camp where she begins life as a “maiden.” Barnard begins sex abuse within weeks. She was 13.
• February 2001: Barnard holds a “salt ceremony.” Elders and parents watch as 10 maidens wear veils and receive rings.
• 2008: The River Road Fellowship begins to fracture when Barnard confronted about sleeping with married women. Some elders begin moving to Spokane.
• 2009: The fellowship property is sold. The maidens, including Tornambe, moved to a large Cheney home.
• September 2009-March 2010: Tornambe travels to Brazil to find a place for Barnard.
• June 6, 2010: Tornambe leaves her life as a maiden. She is 22.
• Jan. 3, 2012: Tornambe tells Minnesota police about Barnard.
• 2014: Prosecutors file 59 sexual assault charges against Barnard. He flees Spokane.
• February 2015: Barnard is caught in Brazil.
• October 27, 2016: Barnard sent to prison for 30 years.
• Wednesday: Tornambe files lawsuit against Barnard and elders.

After a decade of sexual abuse at the hands of a religious cult leader, Lindsay Tornambe boarded an eastbound train out of Spokane in 2010 and fled her life as a “maiden.”

She has returned, seeking legal vengeance.

Tornambe and her attorney, Pat Noaker, traveled to Spokane to announce that they have filed a civil lawsuit this week in Minnesota against church elders of the River Road Fellowship, many of whom relocated to Spokane.

They are connected to Victor A. Barnard, the imprisoned cult leader who eluded an international manhunt for more than a year until he slipped up in Brazil.

“I’m sure a lot of memories will come back,” Tornambe said earlier this week of her return to Spokane. “But I feel like I’m doing something about this situation and holding people accountable. And, letting people know.”

Her efforts are the latest chapter of the tangled history of a religious cult founded in 1996 and led by Barnard on a farm near Finlayson, Minnesota, which is about 100 miles north of Minneapolis.

“Barnard was a child sexual predator of the worst kind who used the medium of religion, cult, and his professed status as a religious leader, and even Jesus Christ Himself, to brainwash parents to serve up their first-born daughters” Tornambe says in her lawsuit.

In 2000, Tornambe was among 10 girls, ages 12 to 19, who were willingly turned over by their parents to become Victor Barnard’s “maidens.” He justified having sex with them, according to court records and interviews, because they served as his concubines – just as King Solomon enjoyed in the Old Testament.

When police in Minnesota grew suspicious of the fellowship, some cult leaders moved the “maidens” to Spokane. All the elders relocated in 2009 when the group sold the Finlayson property to the Salvation Army.

Despite knowing about allegations of abuse at the compound for years, prosecutors in Pine County, Minnesota, didn’t file charges against Barnard until 2014. That’s when Barnard fled from Spokane to avoid arrest and landed on the U.S. Marshals Service most wanted list.

Brazilian agents discovered Barnard in a resort town in 2015 and returned him to Minnesota last year to face 59 criminal counts of sexual assault based largely on the testimony of Tornambe and another woman. Barnard pleaded guilty to two counts last October.

Now the women want the cult’s elders to pay for arranging their sexual servitude.

“This was her idea to come to Spokane,” Noaker said of Tornambe. “She’s afraid this is still going on here.”

Among those elders now living in the Spokane area are Barnard’s wife Stephanie, who lives in Liberty Lake.

Randal L. and Pamela A. Roark are listed in the suit as “elders” in the River Road Fellowship. They live in a rural home just outside of Cheney.

And Craig A. and Susan K. Emblad, also listed as elders, live in a large South Hill home that abuts the playground of Moran Prairie Elementary School.

Randal Roark, Craig Emblad and co-founder David A. Larsen “actually ran River Road Fellowship,” said Noaker, the attorney. “These three guys … ordained Victor Barnard into being a minister.”

Contacted by The Spokesman-Review on Monday, Randal Roark said he was aware that Victor Barnard had pleaded guilty and had been sentenced to 30 years in prison. But he said he wanted to see the allegations in the lawsuit before he would comment.

Susan Emblad answered her door and said she would not comment about the pending civil suit until she had spoken to her husband. Neither Randal Roark nor the Emblads returned requests for comment.

Noaker said he doesn’t know why Minnesota officials did not pursue criminal charges against the church elders other than Victor Barnard.

“They walked away entirely,” Noaker said of the church elders. “Victor Barnard could not have sexually abused these girls without help of other people. Lindsay wants all the adults who knew what was going on to be held accountable.”

Summer camp for life
Tornambe said her first memory of the River Road Fellowship started when she was a little girl. It was called “Shepherd’s Camp.”

“My parents first met Victor when I was 9 in 1996. From then on, we started making trips to Shepherd’s Camp,” she said. “We eventually moved out there in 1998 when I was 11.”

As a little girl, she said she immediately recognized Victor Barnard as someone with a lot of authority.

“I saw him spit in people’s faces or throw them out of the dining hall where we would be having a meal,” she said. “He was someone I didn’t want to make mad because of what I saw with other people.”

At its peak, about 150 people were living at the Finlayson property, which included a farm that was used to feed the families, Noaker said.

In 2000, Barnard gave a sermon and informed the parents that they needed to sacrifice their first-born daughters to God. He started reading off names. Tornambe’s parents made her the family’s “maiden.” She was 13.

“At the time, I didn’t realize it was a lifetime commitment,” she said this week. “I thought I was going to be there for the summer and I would go home to be home-schooled in the fall. Once I was in there, they said … ‘You are not going back home.’ ”

The girls were kept in a separate home used by Barnard, who began living away from his wife, Noaker said.

Pamela Roark, who now lives in Cheney, stayed with and oversaw the “maidens,” according to the lawsuit.

“She was kind of like a mother to the maidens,” Tornambe said of Pamela Roark. “She kind of helped oversee and helped organize our day. At one point, she brought us sex books to help show different positions for when we had our time with Victor.”

While her sexual encounters with Barnard started within weeks, Tornambe remembered a ceremony in 2001 that she referred to as a “salt ceremony.”

“He had all the maidens line up and we had veils over our heads,” she said. “He gave us rings to wear. He had each of us take salt with him. All the trustees were in that room when that happened. It was like a marriage ceremony.”

That same year, Barnard held a meeting with Tornambe and her parents.

“Craig Emblad was in that meeting,” she said. Barnard told her parents that he “may or may not want to have sex with me when I turn 18.

“Victor had me leave the meeting. I’m not sure exactly what they discussed.”

Tornambe continued to be with Barnard for years.

In her world as a maiden, Tornambe said she would seek attention from Barnard because she wanted to conform to the group’s wishes.

“There was one time he wouldn’t have any sexual relations with me until I lost 10 pounds,” she said. “He could make you feel like the worst person in the world. If he was mad at you, then everyone was mad at you. It made you want to do well. It almost became a reward.”

Once the cult began to break up, Barnard moved the maidens to a large home in Cheney. The house also had a room reserved for Barnard, Noaker said.

“They just moved shop and set up out there” in Spokane, Noaker said.

The tipping point came after Barnard expanded his sexual exploits to include wives of his followers, which angered some of the husbands and even the maidens, Tornambe said.

“In June 2010, I told them I didn’t want to stay there anymore,” she said. “I didn’t agree with him sleeping with the married women.”

But Pamela Roark and her daughter tried to talk Tornambe out of leaving, she said.

“They said, ‘The blood of the lamb covers all sins. You have to forgive Victor,’ ” she said.

Instead, Tornambe left Spokane on a train bound for Philadelphia.

Family backs leader
The former maiden remembers the exact moment when her life changed focus.

It was Dec. 31, 2011, when Tornambe reconnected with cousins and heard about their life in high school.

“In that moment, I had a major meltdown and kind of realized all those years that Victor had totally taken away from me. I didn’t realize what he had done to me all those years was wrong, illegal and pretty much rape,” she said.

She relayed her concerns to her aunt and uncle and called the Pine County sheriff on Jan. 3, 2012. She provided the name of another maiden who left the cult, and the legal case began.

But she had to wait two years before prosecutors charged Barnard.

Noaker said he believes Barnard was in Spokane when word of the prosecution prompted him to flee. Last October, Tornambe and another former maiden stood in court during Barnard’s criminal sentencing and read statements.

“It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” she said. “I stopped two times in the middle. I couldn’t even breathe. I was sobbing. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of not being able to get through it.”

Tornambe said she hasn’t reconciled with her parents.

“My mom and two of my sisters wrote letters on behalf of Victor to the judge in Minnesota,” she said. “In the beginning, it hurt more. Now I am almost numb to it.”

Her father “wants to take no responsibility for what happened at all,” Tornambe said. “He says, ‘I’m the victim, too.’ He’s turned his whole side of the family against me. They think my dad’s the victim, and I’m making all this up.”

According to Spokane County records, the home on 5 acres where Randal and Pamela Roark live in Cheney is owned by Tornambe’s sister, Lacey Tornambe.

Lindsay Tornambe, 30, now works for a finance company in Philadelphia. She has a 2-year-old daughter, Francesca, who has become the new focus of her life.

The Spokesman-Review, as a practice, does not name victims of sex crimes. However, Tornambe said she wants her name used.

“I’ve been very open,” she said. “I’ve had people tell me, ‘Your story gave me the strength to come forward with mine.’ I definitely want to be a voice for others.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jan/25/sex-crime-victim-from-maidens-cult-files-lawsuit-t/

Cult Leader Victor Barnard Now Appealing Criminal Case

TAKING HIS ATTORNEYS BY SURPRISE

FOX 21 Onlineby Site Staff
January 27, 2017

(KMSP – Fox 9) – Minnesota cult leader Victor Barnard is appealing his criminal conviction in which he plead guilty to sexually molesting tow of his teenage followers. As part of a plea bargain, Barnard had agreed to a 30 year prison sentence.

The notice of appeal was filed Tuesday by Amy Lawler, an Assistant State Public Defender. Barnard’s attorneys for his criminal case were unaware an appeals was in the works.

The move also caught Pine County Attorney Reese Fredrickson by surprise. Frederickson is unaware of the grounds for the appeal since Barnard plead guilty and agreed to the sentence.

Barnard is still hospitalized after he was assaulted two weeks ago at the state prison in Rush City. The Minnesota Department of Corrections will only say an inmate was assaulted, and would not detail the nature of the injuries.

On Tuesday, Barnard and 15 followers were also served with a lawsuit from one of his victims, Lindsay Tornambe. The lawsuit claims the leadership of the River Road Fellowship failed to protect her from “the perversions of Victor Barnard.”

It was a Fox 9 Investigation two years ago that revealed Barnard sexually abused two of his followers who were members of the “Maidens,” a group of 10 first born daughters in the group who were to serve Victor Barnard. The story led to a re-opening of the investigation against Barnard, a 58 count indictment against him, an international manhunt, and his eventual extradition back to Minnesota.

Barnard plead guilty last year to two counts of sexual misconduct. As part of a plea agreement he was sentenced in October to 30 years in prison.

http://www.fox21online.com/2017/01/27/cult-leader-victor-barnard-now-appealing-criminal-case/

Civil lawsuit filed against River Road Fellowship

KMSP-TV
Tom Lyden
January 24, 2017

PINE CO., Minn. (KMSP) - A woman who was sexually assaulted by cult leader Victor Barnard for nearly a decade, beginning when she was 13 years old, is now filing a civil lawsuit against 15 former leaders of his religious group, the River Road Fellowship.

The lawsuit was filed late on Tuesday afternoon in Pine County, Minnesota. The lawsuit claims the group’s leaders “negligently and tortuously exposed the 'Maidens' to the sexual perversion of Victor Barnard.” Several of the defendants had already filed motions to dismiss the pending lawsuit, claiming they were unaware of any sexual abuse. The lawsuit will also be filed in Washington where most of Barnard’s former followers now live.

The civil suit is based on the criminal case against Barnard, which police and prosecutors recently opened up for the Fox 9 Investigators.vil lawsuit filed against River Road Fellowship

In October, Barnard pleaded guilty to sexual assault. Charges followed a Fox 9 Investigation of two women who came forward to accuse Barnard of abusing them for a decade beginning when they were 12 and 13 years old.

Lindsey Tornambe, who is identified as the Jane Doe plaintiff in the lawsuit, was one of the Maidens, a group of ten first born daughters who took care of Barnard at the groups camp in Finlayson, Minnesota. The Maidens were supposed to be celibate, but Barnard turned them into concubines, according to the criminal charges.

"I didn't know what he was doing was criminal, that he was raping me," she said. "Victor was the one who had sex with me and the other girls, but all the other adults they knew about it and didn't do anything. I believe they should be held accountable also."

Police and prosecutors believe Barnard still has followers in Pine County.

County Attorney Reese Frederickson said Barnard's guilty plea left him with a lingering question: How many of the 140 followers knew what was happening?

"They did suspect something going on. One of them even referenced it as a joke among cult members that this was Victor Barnard's harem, but those were only suspicions," said Frederickson

In statement after statement to detectives, a dozen former followers describe not a benevolent savior, but a "manipulative, vindictive, chain smoking narcissist," who would sometimes spit in the face of his faithful. One former follower described it as “The Victor Show.”

"They turned a blind eye, if they had questions. They just pushed it aside,” said Pine County Sheriff Jeff Nelson.

When the River Road Fellowship bought a camp in Finlayson 20 years ago, they provided documents describing the group to Pine County. Those documents describe Victor Barnard as a minister.

Four other couples were listed as trustees of the River Road Fellowship.

Craig Elmblad was Barnard's right hand man and enforcer.

"Craig was in the meeting when Victor asked my parents if he could eventually have sex with me. I was only 14 at the time," Tornambe said.

There was Randy Roark and his wife Pam, who was a mother figure to the maidens. According to documents in the criminal case, Pam Roark would’ve been in the best position to know what was really happening between Barnard and the Maidens. Lindsay now calls Pam Roark Barnard's pimp.

"At one point she got us books on sex and sex positions, obviously to help us with our sex lives with Victor," she said

David Larsen was another leader named in the civil suit. Larsen was with Barnard from the beginning and helped him establish Shepherd's Camp in Finlayson. But Barnard demoted Larsen.

Larsen cooperated with police investigations of Victor Barnard in 2012 and 2014. And Larsen was, in one important respect, the first to blow the whistle.

In July 2009, Larsen wrote an 18-page letter to Barnard, accusing him of adultery with the married women. He wrote Barnard surrounded himself, with "a bunch of yes men." He then admitted, "I am one of the worst." He accused Barnard of "fornication" with the maidens and further wrote, "I personally sorrow most for this."

Torname is not convinced he did enough. "Sounds like he knew about it and turned a blind eye. And until Victor started sleeping with the married women he decided to speak up. When all along he knew what was happening with the young girls," Tornambe said.

Two months after Larsen’s letter, the group disintegrated over the adultery allegations.

Barnard and about 40 of his followers headed for Washington, where many of his top lieutenants still live, setting up small businesses. The remaining Maiden clean homes for a living.

All of the followers in Washington refused to cooperate with detectives, some even denied they knew Barnard.

Trustees the Fox 9 Investigators could reach respectfully declined to comment.

"I'd say some of the elders who formed this knew what was going on," Frederickson said.

But Frederickson admitted, he doesn't have a criminal case against any follower.

Barnard, however, will spend the next 30 years in prison after pleading guilty.

But what is the fitting punishment for blind obedience? Tornambe hopes to find out with her civil case.

"I want all of them to know what they did wasn't okay," she said. "They can't live their lives and think they had no part in helping Victor, because they did."

Barnard was recently hospitalized after he was assaulted by a fellow prisoner at the state prison in Rush City, Minnesota.

http://www.fox9.com/news/231520763-story

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/20/2017

Deja vu, Satanic Ritual Abuse, Hypnosis, FLDS, Legal, Scientology, Victor Barnard, Catholic Church, Human Rights, Vietnam, Religious Freedom

​Big Think: ​

Déjà vu Is a Neurological Phenomenon Scientists Claim

The French study, published in the journal Clinical Neurophysiology, measured EEG wave patterns from patients with epilepsy who experienced déjà vu through electrical stimulation. The areas of the brain they examined included the amygdala, which is responsible for emotion and the hippocampus. Researchers found that electrical patterns, emanating from rhinal cortices and the amygdala or the hippocampus, caused déjà vu to occur. These neuroscientists believe that some sort of electrical phenomenon in the medial temporal lobe activates the memory in such a way that it causes déjà vu to occur.

http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/deja-vu-is-a-neurological-phenomenon-scientists-claim

​Edmonton Journal: ​

Investigation into satanic child sex abuse involving dead U.K. prime minister began in Edmonton with hypnosis

A controversial police investigation into suspected sex abuse of children by the late British prime minister Edward Heath, with related claims of Satanic rituals and murders, originated in Edmonton in 1989, when a Canadian psychologist hypnotized a woman and helped her “recover” suppressed memories, according to a confidential police consultant report obtained by the National Post.

Cheryl Malmo, an Edmonton psychologist who retired in 2016, hypnotized a woman to treat her for depression, which she suspected was related to abuse from her childhood in Wiltshire, England, according to the report. What followed was a litany of horrific tales, seeping slowly from the woman’s memory, growing in lurid detail over time, “guided and influenced” by Malmo’s hypnotherapy, according to the consultant criminologist.

“Whilst it is quite likely that a prolific pedophile would serially abuse all his daughters, the sequence by which the sisters retrieved their memories cannot be considered investigatively pure,” Hoskins concludes in her 150-page report.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/national/investigation+into+satanic+child+abuse+involving+dead/12702443/story.html

Lake Powell News: Brower Speaks Out About FLDS

We asked Sam Brower for his reaction to the sentence. He said it was “shameful.”

“In all my decades working in the criminal justice field I have never ever seen a plea agreement handed out with absolutely no teeth in it,” he said. “It was a shameful miscarriage of justice.”

http://www.lakepowelllife.com/brower-speaks-out-about-flds/

Law360: Ex-Cult Members Sued Leader’s Attys Too Late, Judge Says

Former members of a fundamentalist Mormon sect who sued its jailed sex-offender leader Warren Jeffs and the law firm that represented the controversial church had their case dismissed Wednesday by a Utah federal judge who ruled their claims were too late or too tenuous.

https://www.law360.com/articles/879955/ex-cult-members-sued-leader-s-attys-too-late-judge-says

​Tony Ortega: ​

On the ‘Leah Remini’ Reddit special this week: A powerful Texas duo

​Wright, of course, is the Austin journalist who penned “The Apostate,” an amazing 25,000-word New Yorker magazine feature in February 2011 about director Paul Haggis and his defection from Scientology. Wright subsequently turned that article into his book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, which was released in January 2013. And two years after that, Alex Gibney used Wright’s book as a basis for his documentary film version, also titled Going Clear, which HBO premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015 before airing it on the network that March, becoming the most-watched HBO documentary in a decade and the winner of three Emmy awards.

http://tonyortega.org/2017/01/15/on-the-leah-remini-reddit-special-this-week-a-powerful-texas-duo/

Star Tribune: Defense attorney seeking details about Victor Barnard's reported assault in prison

The attorney for Victor Barnard, the religious cult figure serving a long sentence for sexually molesting girls who were among his followers, said Sunday that state prison officials have refused to reveal details about his client reportedly being assaulted in prison.

http://www.cultnews101.com/2017/01/defense-attorney-seeking-details-about.html

The Guardian: Abuse in Catholic church 'not being fought with enough force' claims new book

In Lussuria (Lust), which will be released in Italian by publisher Feltrinelli on Thursday, Fittipaldi methodically pores over court documents and cites interviews with priests and judicial officials to paint a damning picture of the first three years of Francis’s papacy. Fittipaldi claims that 1,200 plausible complaints of molestation against boys and girls from around the world have been brought to the Vatican’s attention in that period.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/15/catholic-church-not-done-enough-to-tackle-abuse-claims-new-book

​Human Rights Watch: ​

World Report 2017 - Our annual review of human rights around the globe

World Report 2017 summarizes key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff undertook in 2016, usually in close partnership with human rights activists in the country in focus.

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017

​

The Diplomat: ​

Vietnam's Religious Law: Testing the Faithful

The law requires all religious groups to register with the authorities and report on their activities. Authorities have the right to approve or refuse requests.

http://thediplomat.com/2017/01/vietnams-religious-law-testing-the-faithful/

​News, Intervention, Recovery

Cults101.org resources about cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations and related topics.
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CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

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Defense attorney seeking details about Victor Barnard's reported assault in prison

The cult leader, convicted of sexually assaulting girls among his followers, was reportedly attacked in the Rush City prison.

Minneapolis Star Tribune
By Paul Walsh Star Tribune
JANUARY 15, 2017

The attorney for Victor Barnard, the religious cult figure serving a long sentence for sexually molesting girls who were among his followers, said Sunday that state prison officials have refused to reveal details about his client reportedly being assaulted in prison.

David Risk said he was contacted by a member of the news media and told that Barnard, 55, was assaulted recently in prison in Rush City.

Risk said he reached the state Department of Corrections' emergency contact for Barnard and other corrections officials and learned little.

"Officially, they tell me there is an investigation pending," Risk said. "They said they can't tell me anything about it in regards to Victor and the incident."

Risk said prison officials wouldn't even say whether the investigation is criminal in nature.

The attorney said he's had no contact with Barnard since the incident occurred.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections confirmed Sunday that an assault occurred and is being investigated, but she declined to say it involved Barnard.

The news about Barnard being assaulted was reported Friday by KMSP-TV, Channel 9. It said the assault last Sunday on Barnard was violent enough to put him in a hospital intensive care unit but was not considered life-threatening.

Barnard, who had pleaded guilty to two counts of felony sexual assault involving young girls while he led the cloistered River Road Fellowship community in east-central Minnesota, was sentenced in late October to 30 years in prison.

While the allegations involving Barnard surfaced years ago, charges weren't filed until the spring of 2014. Authorities caught up with Barnard nearly a year later, when he was found in Brazil. He was extradited to the United States in June 2016.

Barnard left Pine County in the late 2000s amid rumors of sexual impropriety and financial bankruptcy. His group splintered and he and dozens of others moved to Washington state, where they set up businesses.

After charges were filed, he landed on the U.S. Marshals Service's most-wanted list, and authorities tracked him to a beachside resort town in Brazil.



http://www.startribune.com/defense-attorney-seeking-details-about-victor-barnard-s-reported-assault-in-prison/410768255/

Minnesota Cult Leader Victor Barnard Sentenced to 30 Years

New York Magazine

October 28, 2016

By Catie L'Heureux

 

On Friday, two rape survivors ended Minnesota cult leader Victor Barnard’s reign. The 55-year-old was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting two women for years.

Barnard was the leader of the River Road Fellowship, an offshoot Christian sect he founded and transformed into a cult. The two women who ultimately filed 59 counts of sexual assault against Barnard were the youngest of ten first-born daughters, ages 12 to 24, whom Barnard selected to be the group’s “Ten Maidens,” in 2000. As chaste, exemplar virgins, the girls lived apart from their families at Barnard’s private camp, where he secretly raped them for a decade.

Barnard pleaded guilty earlier this month on two counts of felony sexual assault and agreed to 30 years in a plea deal. The final sentencing hearing on Friday ended four months of U.S. court proceedings, following Barnard’s capture in Brazil, and allowed the two survivors to read statements describing the impact Barnard’s crimes had on their lives.

The two women stood before the packed courtroom together and read their statements aloud, speaking directly to Barnard while describing how they worked to overcome the abuse. “I ask Victor to look around,” one woman said. “I have the whole United States system of law enforcement and justice behind me. What does he have? A cult of perverts and cowards.” She continued:

I know he thought I would change my mind here, that he still had power over me. No chance. He cannot break me. He does not own me. He no longer scares me. He is the one that is weak. … I can now say good-bye to Victor – forever.

The second woman began by noting that yesterday, October 27, marked 16 years since Barnard first abused her. “He stole my innocence. My childhood. My virginity,” she said. “In not going to trial, he is only sparing himself the pain and humiliation of the details of his abuse of us becoming public.”

In his statement, Barnard explained that what he did was not consistent with faith. “God is good, his word faithful and true,” he said, according to Minnesota station Fox 9 KMSP. “I have not always walked in goodness. I am deeply sorrowful … and I hope God will heal their broken hearts.”

Defense attorney Marsh Halberg, who represented Barnard with Dave Risk, said that if Barnard complies with conditions, which include sex counseling, he could serve only two-thirds of the sentence — about 17 to 18 years. “He really did want to spare everybody — the victims, the church, the community,” Halberg said, acknowledging that other people considered Barnard’s decision to not enter a trial as martyrdom. “I appreciate that they don’t see it that way. He didn’t want to put people through it.”

Pine County attorney Reese Frederickson said he shortened his own argument to let the women’s powerful statements speak for themselves. “The sentencing brings closure for the victims and the community,” he said. “Justice was served.”

This post has been updated throughout.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/minnesota-cult-leader-victor-barnard-sentenced-to-30-years.html

 

Two Childhood Rape Survivors Are Ending a Cult Leader's Terrifying Reign

October 28, 2016

New York Magazine

By Catie L'Heureux

Of all the abuse, manipulation, and horrifying crimes that religious cult leader Victor Barnard committed, no one could have predicted his youngest victim would wield the most damning evidence against him. In court documents, her name is C. When she was 13, she started drawing a tiny Xon her calendar every day Barnard raped her.

Wedged into corners of her calendar’s white boxes, alongside notes about music practice or play dates with friends, the ink charted what would become the driving force behind 59 counts of sexual assault that C and her friend B, another victim, ultimately filed against Barnard. Years after he first abused them, the two women will speak directly to Barnard in court today.

Barnard, now 55, rose to power in the 1990s as the charismatic leader of the River Road Fellowship, an offshoot Christian sect he founded and later transformed into a cult. He convinced 150 people to sell their homes and move to Shepherd’s Camp, an isolated 85-acre campground in Finlayson, Minnesota. Life was simple and entirely self-sustaining: Families sewed their own clothing, planted gardens, and traded goods and services like butchering, cabinet-building, and soap-making. There was no internet, no cell phones.

At Shepherd’s Camp, Barnard told everyone he represented Jesus Christ, dressing in billowy robes and carrying a staff. He drove a Cadillac Escalade and took children on trips in a chrome-finished tour bus. Rather than hosting church services in one sanctuary, River Road members worshipped in small groups at home; when Barnard stopped by for such occasions it was like a visit from the pope.

In the summer of 2000, Barnard announced the names of ten first-born daughters, ages 12 to 24, whom he selected to live apart from their families at his private camp within Shepherd’s Camp. The “Ten Maidens,” as he called them, would be the congregation’s chaste, exemplar virgins, taking a vow of celibacy in a ceremony Barnard called the “Salt Covenant,” in which they promised to never marry and devote their lives to Barnard. Parents considered it an honor, as if their daughters were nuns. C and B were 12 and 13 then, the two youngest maidens, close friends, and guitarists in the church band. They would later remember moving to Barnard’s compound initially felt like a trip to summer camp.

Cloistered, the ten maidens allegedly cooked, cleaned, and sewed for Barnard between scheduled days of sex with him, though no one said a word to one another about the abuse. Barnard compared their relationships to Jesus and Mary Magdalene, quoting scripture to persuade the girls it was okay. “He said that this was his way to teach me love,” C told Minnesota station Fox 9 KMSP in an investigative report. “My parents had never even had the talk with me.”

Barnard allegedly manipulated the two girls’ parents in the same fashion, coercing them into giving him permission to have sex with their daughters. He shared with them biblical passages that he said showed he could have sex with the girls — even though he started abusing both girls months before that. “I didn’t know that he would want to do it right away,” B’s father later remembered about those meetings. “I would call it a spiritual stupor. The line was drawn that we would either be loyal to Victor or we would not.”

People who know nothing about cults besides the horrors of Jim Jones and Charles Manson will wonder: What kind of parent gives up their daughter in the first place? The two cult experts I spoke to — New York psychotherapist Daniel Shaw, who has counseled former cult members for over 20 years, and Dr. Marc Galanter, professor of psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center — were saddened by the story of River Road, but not surprised. Anyone can fall into a cult under the right circumstances.

“Nobody joins a cult,” Shaw said. “You join a community that you believe will have positive benefits and goals.” Galanter agreed, noting people who feel vulnerable, displaced, or unhappy are at the highest risk of joining a cult — they’re searching for a lost connection.

For many members of River Road, this was true: They first knew Barnard as a fellow member of the Way International, a nondenominational Christian sect that fell apart in the mid-1980s, after the group’s founder and his successor were both accused of brainwashing and having sex with female followers. When Barnard founded River Road years later, he promised them it would be different. He lied.

Barnard developed trademark signs of a religious cult leader, whom Shaw defines as a “traumatic narcissist”: He claimed perfection and that he was one with the divine (“Jesus Christ in the flesh”) and considered himself exempt from the group’s social and moral standards. These were all red flags, but few seemed to notice the dangers of Barnard’s ascent.

“They’d stick around because they loved him,” an ex-member told me of the people who stayed. Another woman argued it wasn’t so simple. “I can’t say to somebody this is how we got tricked,” she said. “He’s using people’s faith and their pain and their suffering and their longing for comfort — he’s using all of that.”

River Road members’ blind dependency on Barnard could have been mutual, according to Shaw: The cult leader — deluded, psychotic, and highly functioning — comes to rely on followers to worship him and validate his supposed perfection. Often, people decide to leave cults only after their sense of self is destroyed. “It’s not just because you’ve come to know information about the leader,” Shaw explained. “It’s more because you have reached a point of utter despair and emptiness. You’ve been abused to a point where you can’t take it anymore.” That moment came around 2008, when a group of husbands confronted Barnard about his affairs with their wives and approached the local sheriff.

River Road soon unraveled, though John Carlson, who was Pine County’s attorney at the time, declined to press charges. “The sad truth is, these individuals admit they were essentially ‘brainwashed’ by Barnard and readily and willingly did what he wanted them to do,” he wrote. Reports of child sexual abuse were deemed “merely suspicion.” Many followers eventually left the cult, including C and B, amid rumors of bankruptcy and Barnard’s sexual exploits. Dozens of others moved with Barnard to Washington State.

C and B came forward in 2012, accusing Barnard of sexually assaulting them for years. At the time, both of their mothers were reportedly in denial. Approached by an investigator, B’s mother “did not want to hear it.” C later recalled telling her parents that Barnard raped her: “My mom said the blood of the lamb covers it all,” she told Fox 9. “Jesus Christ forgives.” C and B waited two years for the county to finally charge Barnard, after Fox 9 investigative reporter Tom Lyden produced an award-winning segment that exposed Barnard’s crimes. “How in the world could you pass on this case?” Lyden told me, referring to the county attorney. “This kind of story doesn’t exist.”

C’s calendar became vital because, in the court filing, it made her charges hauntingly exact. Whereas B could legally claim only ten counts for every year of multiple assaults, C’s precise recordings meant prosecutors could charge Barnard more aggressively. Her 49 counts show how terrifying Barnard’s abuse really was, day-by-day, until he forbade her from keeping a calendar. Sometimes he raped her four times in one month, or two days in a row. Other times he’d leave her alone for two months, calling her to his room to clean or cook for him instead.

Barnard was charged and fled the country soon after the Fox 9 broadcast aired. He was on the run for over a year, spending three months on the U.S. Marshals Service’s Most Wanted List with a $25,000 reward for his arrest. Brazilian authorities found him in February 2015 in a condominium on Pipa Beach, an eastern resort town, where he was staying with a 33-year-old former maiden from a wealthy Brazilian family.

He spent over a year in a Brazilian prison cell while U.S. officials worked to bring him back to Minnesota. Brazil’s Supreme Court granted U.S. custody of Barnard last June, on the condition that his prison sentence be no more than 30 years (the maximum time he would serve if he were convicted in Brazil). Court proceedings began four months ago and end today, after Barnard surprised C, B, and Pine County attorney Reese Frederickson earlier this month with a plea deal. The 55-year-old pleaded guilty and agreed to 30 years in prison on two counts of felony sexual assault.

“I was surprised because Barnard had nothing to lose by going to trial,” Frederickson told me. “Most defendants would have taken the risk of trial.” In interviews with reporters, defense attorney Dave Risk seemed to paint Barnard as a martyr while admitting Barnard felt “terrible” about what he did: “It’s very unusual that a person in his position would put their self-interest aside, especially as it relates to going to prison for 30 years,” Risk said. “And instead look to spare the victims in this case, the community and a lot of other people he cares about all the litigation and all the heartache.”

C and B, now in their late 20s, will address Barnard in the final hearing this afternoon, reading oral or written statements to the court that will describe the impact Barnard’s crimes had on their lives. The judge will then sentence Barnard to a Minnesota prison.

“They lived through a nightmare and emerged as good, strong, and positive people,” prosecuting attorney Frederickson said earlier this month, after the surprise plea deal, referring to the two women. “I hope that they serve as an inspiration for other victims of abuse to come forward.”

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/rape-victims-minnesota-cult-leader-victor-barnard-sexual-assault.html

 

Accused cult leader Victor Barnard pleads guilty to sexual assault, will serve 30 years

Fugitive preacher Victor Barnard accepted a plea deal that will leave him in jail for most or all of the rest of his life. 

 

Minneapolis Star Tribun

By Jennifer Brooks Star Tribune

OCTOBER 11, 2016

 

Fugitive preacher Victor Barnard will spend the next 30 years in prison for raping teenage girls entrusted to his care.

Barnard, who fled halfway across the globe to avoid prosecution, confessed his crimes in a Pine County courtroom Tuesday afternoon, accepting a plea deal on two counts of felony sexual assault against the young women he isolated from their families and molested for years.

Barnard, 55, accepted two consecutive 15-year sentences that almost guarantee that the charismatic leader of the cultlike River Road Fellowship will spend most or all of his life behind bars.

Both of his victims agreed to the plea deal. One of them sat in the courtroom and watched Barnard finally admit to the assaults that he — and many members of her family and community — had denied for years.

"I don't think my heart has ever pounded as hard as it was in that courtroom," Lindsay Tornambe said afterward. She was 13 when Barnard convinced her parents to bring her to live in a compound, close to his home, with a group of other young girls and women he dubbed "maidens." The abuse began soon afterward and continued for years.

Barnard's guilty plea brought her some measure of closure, she said, and vindication.

"Hearing him confess that he was guilty ... definitely was satisfying," she said. "Knowing that he is guilty definitely helps close this chapter, in being able to move forward."

It was an unusual plea deal. The prison sentence Barnard agreed to accept was almost as lengthy as it would have been if he had been prosecuted on all 59 of the first- and third-degree assault charges he was facing, said Pine County Attorney Reese Frederickson.

Dressed in a baggy blue sweatshirt, Barnard arrived in court cleanshaven and soft-spoken. He said little, beyond agreeing to the conditions and counts of his plea deal.

Afterward, his attorney said Barnard agreed to the deal and lengthy punishment to spare his victims and remaining followers the pain of a trial.

"There is no question that he feels terrible about what he did," Risk said. "Contrite doesn't begin to express how badly he feels about what he's done and the impact he's had. And the reason he just chose to put himself in prison for 30 years is because he didn't want to make it any worse than what he'd already done."

If the case had gone to trial, it likely would have dragged in friends and relatives to testify against each other and dredged up the details of the assaults in lurid detail. Barnard decided he didn't want that.

"It's very unusual that a person in his position would put their self interest aside, especially as it relates to going to prison for 30 years," Risk said. "And instead look to spare the victims in this case, the community and a lot of other people he cares about all the litigation and all the heartache."

Asked whether she believed Barnard took the deal for her sake, Tornambe scoffed.

"No, definitely not," she said. "I think maybe [he took the deal] because deep down he knows he's guilty. Anyone who would look at this case and sees that he chose 30 years to sit in prison knows that he must be guilty and I think he does too."

Barnard's legal team approached Frederickson about the plea deal on Friday.

Barnard used to compare himself to Jesus, sometimes dressing in shepherd's robes as he moved among his followers. Taking the plea deal, without having to go through the lurid details in court, might also allow him to cast himself in a new role as martyr, Tornambe said.

That, she said, "is how he sees himself, as an Apostle ...[as] Jesus Christ in the flesh," she said. "So he would take this on to spare the church."

Tornambe spent years fighting to convince family, friends and Pine County officials that something terrible had happened to her during her years with the secretive River Road Fellowship. She hadn't been afraid of another fight in court.

"I was ready for it," she said. "I had a wonderful attorney and people supporting me and I was completely ready to go to trial and to tell everyone what really happened. But looking at things, this seemed like a better option."

Barnard had coaxed families in the River Road Fellowship to send their daughters to him, promising that a group of young women he called "maidens" would live lives of prayer and purity. Years later, two of the so-called maidens turned to Pine County authorities for help, saying Barnard began raping them almost as soon as he separated them from their families. They were 12 and 13 at the time.

Barnard had left Pine County in 2009 amid rumors of sexual impropriety and bankruptcy.

When Pine County brought charges against him in 2014, he fled, setting off an international manhunt. The accused cult leader landed on the U.S. Marshals Service's most-wanted list. Brazilian authorities tracked him in a beachside resort town, where he was in hiding with one of his former maidens — a young woman from a wealthy Brazilian family. He spent more than a year in a South American prison before he agreed to be extradited back to Pine County in June.

Unable to make the $1.5 million bail the court set for him, he has been sitting behind bars in Pine County ever since. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 28.

http://www.startribune.com/accused-cult-leader-stands-trial-in-pine-county/396680501/