Former leader of Ozarks church, called 'cult' by some, faces child rape allegations
Raymond Lambert II, a man whose fringe southwest Missouri religious group was part of a 2006 sex abuse scandal, was scheduled for a preliminary hearing this week after being accused of similar crimes.
Lambert, 69, faces a charge of forcible rape and four counts of statutory sodomy after allegedly sexually assaulting multiple victims from 1995-2013, according to court records. Criminal charges were filed in 2022 after the latest alleged victim reported Lambert to authorities in McDonald County, where the crime reportedly occurred.
The Washburn man was a pastor at Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, which had small, commune-style chapters in McDonald and Newton counties. The group was widely considered a cult after Lambert and several of his relatives who held leadership positions in the church were accused in 2006 of sexually abusing women over the course of of several years.
According to previous reporting on the highly publicized case, the alleged victims were supposedly told their bodies were being prepared "for service to God." They reportedly backed out of testifying at trial and the defendants avoided prosecution.
Lambert had faced six felony counts of child sexual abuse that were dropped.
Then-McDonald County Prosecutor Janice Durbin said in a 2008 statement that the alleged victims could "no longer subject themselves or their families to the ongoing scrutiny and pressures of a very public proceeding.”
The Missouri Attorney General's Office has been called to assist McDonald County in the prosecution of Lambert after the recent charges, which came months after a girl told investigators in the summer of 2022 that she was raped in a shed by Lambert in 2013, when she was 10 years old and visiting family.
Lambert's bond was set at $50,000 after being arrested in November 2022. He paid the required $5,000 to make bail.
Online court records did not indicate what occurred at Monday's preliminary hearing at the McDonald County courthouse and messages from the News-Leader were not immediately returned Tuesday.
Ryan Collingwood covers a wide range of topics for the News-Leader with an emphasis on public safety. He can be reached by phone at 417-258-8174 and email at rcollingwood@news-leader.com. You can also follow Ryan on social media at X.com/rwcollingwood.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Former leader of Ozarks commune-style church faces rape allegations
