Horace Mann alum details shocking sexual abuse of students at elite prep school in new book, Polygamist sect limits sex to 'seed bearers,' court document says

Horace Mann alum details shocking sexual abuse of students at elite prep school in new book
-  The DA’s report noted there were at least 20 instances of abuse brought to the attention of Horace Mann teachers through the years — and law enforcement was never notified.
-  found as many as 64 students were abused by 22 faculty and staff members

Polygamist sect limits sex to 'seed bearers,' court document says
-  It's hard to imagine that a convicted child rapist would be allowed to lead a church from prison, but that's exactly what's going on with Warren Jeffs.
- In 2008, authorities raided the church's sprawling Texas ranch. Police removed more than 460 children from the property, including mothers under 18 years old. Authorities seized and shut down the ranch last year.

Horace Mann alum details shocking sexual abuse of students at elite prep school in new book
BY Sherryl Connelly  NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, October 24, 2015

Horace Mann, its board populated by international hedge fund managers and real estate titans, settled with abuse victims for between $4 million and $5 million.

Amos Kamil, the Horace Mann alum who first exposed the shocking story of sexually abused students at the elite prep school, knew only about half of what happened.

Three years later, he’s ready to tell the rest of the sordid tale.

Kamil, in “Great is the Truth: Secrecy, Scandal, and the Quest for Justice at the Horace Mann School,” details the long-lingering effects on the victims of predatory staffers.

In the aftermath of the furor ignited by his 2012 article in The New York Times Magazine, many more victims stepped forward.

Only then did the human toll of the abuse become clear — so many lives impaired by the reverberating trauma of drug abuse, aborted careers, suicide.

Kamil, in the book co-written with Sean Elder, charges the Bronx school and its powerful backers adopted a ruthless stance with the sex-abuse survivors.

Protecting Horace Mann’s reputation, and its financial well-being, seemingly took precedence over addressing the victims’ needs, according to Kamil....

The Kamil book says that while the sexual abuse lasted from the 1960s into the 1990s, the school ignored repeated warnings about the sick behavior.

One guidance counselor was said to listen sympathetically before putting his own sexual moves on a student.

Riverdale’s Horace Mann was a small patch of educational paradise in the Bronx, where teachers were expected to fully immerse themselves in their students’ lives.

Boundaries between home and school were intentionally blurred as pupils routinely traveled with their teachers, or spent after-hours and weekends pursuing further enlightenment in their company.

The cult personality was seen as a good thing, demonstrating the powerful influence of a dedicated educator....

The DA’s report noted there were at least 20 instances of abuse brought to the attention of Horace Mann teachers through the years — and law enforcement was never notified.

A recently concluded independent investigation conducted by former Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder — and funded by the alumni association — found that as many as 64 students were abused by 22 faculty and staff members.

The school refused to cooperate in the probe. And when 25 of the survivors repped by media-savvy lawyer Gloria Allred agreed to mediation, Horace Mann’s board played hardball.

New York State’s strict statute of limitations precluded the victims’ getting their day in court, so a financial settlement was the school’s only opportunity to address the wrong.

The settlement arrived at in Brooklyn’s Poly Prep abuse scandal awarded the 12 survivors about $800,000 each. Penn State paid out a total of $59.7 million to the 25 victims in the Jerry Sandusky scandal....
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/horace-mann-alum-reveals-abuse-new-book-article-1.2410248


Polygamist sect limits sex to 'seed bearers,' court document says
By Thom Patterson, CNN  Thu October 1, 2015

(CNN) It's hard to imagine that a convicted child rapist would be allowed to lead a church from prison, but that's exactly what's going on with Warren Jeffs.

Jeffs leads a polygamist sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It gained worldwide attention in 2006 when authorities accused Jeffs of sexual offenses against girls he took as wives. At one point Jeffs disappeared, prompting the FBI to put him on its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list until he was captured.

In 2008, authorities raided the church's sprawling Texas ranch. Police removed more than 460 children from the property, including mothers under 18 years old. Authorities seized and shut down the ranch last year.

Eventually, Jeffs was convicted in 2011 of "sexual assault" and "aggravated sexual assault" of two girls ages 12 and 15. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years.

The FLDS broke away from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago because its members refused to renounce polygamy.

The church allegedly exercises control over the adjacent towns of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah -- an area informally known as Short Creek. Other enclaves exist in Mancos, Colorado; Boise City, Oklahoma; Custer County, South Dakota; and a Canadian community known as Bountiful, British Columbia....

First obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune, a child custody petition filed in a St. George, Utah, juvenile court by Lyle Jeffs' estranged wife Charlene Jeffs describes a group of followers called "seed bearers." "A seed bearer is an elect man of a worthy bloodline chosen by the Priesthood to impregnate the FLDS woman," according to Charlene Jeffs' petition. Under a new doctrine, "FLDS men are no longer permitted to have children with their multiple wives. That privilege belongs to the seed bearer alone," the petition said. "It is the husband's responsibility to hold the hands of their wives while the seed bearer 'spreads his seed.' In layman terms, the husband is required to sit in the room while the chosen seed bearer, or a couple of them, rape his wife or wives," according to the document.

Utah juvenile court records are not usually available to the public, so it's unknown if anyone filed documents disputing any details in Charlene Jeffs' petition, or the veracity of the petition's allegations....

Children who were put to work included at least 125 who were younger than 12, at least 50 between ages 12 and 13, and at least 25 between 14 and 15, according to the suit. All performed tasks during school hours such as mowing, pruning and bagging pecans, the suit said....

The number of followers in the secretive church is impossible to know for sure. At its peak many years ago, total FLDS membership may have been as high as 15,000, Brower said, but by his educated guess the number now -- in the wake of Jeffs' imprisonment and the civil lawsuit -- is somewhere near 10,000.

Brower said several thousand have left the church or been expelled within the past few years.

FLDS members did not send their children to public schools, which may explain reports of skyrocketing enrollment in public schools. Enrollments have been rising, as more members are expelled or leave the church....
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/us/polygamist-flds-warren-jeffs-update/