Lawyers spar as Missouri judge again delays closing Agape Boarding School over safety issues (ie phy
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Lawyers spar as Missouri judge again delays closing Agape Boarding School over safety issues (ie physical and sexual abuse)
KANSAS CITY, Mo. Five days after a southwest Missouri judge signed an order to close Agape Boarding School and remove students over concerns they werent safe, he again delayed that action Monday.
Officials with the Missouri attorney generals office and the Missouri Department of Social Services were prepared to present evidence at a hearing in the Cedar County Courthouse on why the embattled school should be shut down. Two former students and a DSS employee who investigated abuse at the school near Stockton were ready to take the stand.
The office did everything possible to present evidence and witness testimony including that of victims of alleged abuse to prove the pattern of abuse at Agape Boarding School, said Chris Nuelle, press secretary for the attorney generals office, who attended the hearing. The office still intends to present that case at the soonest possible opportunity, and has secured an agreement that allows DSS to continue around the clock monitoring of students at Agape Boarding School.
The AGs filing Friday also said that multiple people still working at the school are appealing their substantiated findings from DSS that they physically abused students. State law allows the staffers to keep working while they appeal the findings.
Also at the hearing was Agape director Bryan Clemensen, who sat next to Schultz, and several others from the school.
The Kansas City Star has learned that Clemensen is one of those staffers notified by DSS that he had a substantiated report of abuse against him. Sources said that Scott Dumar, the schools longtime medical coordinator, also is among those appealing a substantiated DSS finding. Dumar is one of five staff members charged last year with physical abuse of students.
Sending Sheriff McCrary to Agape last week to confirm whether the staffer still worked there only intensified the ire against the judge.
Thats because McCrary and his office have numerous connections to Agape which is overseen by Agape Baptist Church. Several people with ties to the school work for the sheriffs office, including Deputy Robert Graves, who attended Agape as a student then worked at the school for years, including while he was a deputy. Until recently, he also served on the board of Agape Baptist Church.
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(Judge refusal to let kids testify. Law enforcement ties to Agape. Federal charges.)