Two Agape staffers plead guilty to misdemeanor charges; case dropped against a third

Two men charged with felonies for allegedly assaulting students at Agape Boarding School in southwest Missouri pleaded guilty Thursday to lesser misdemeanors, while the case against a third was dropped when the alleged victim did not show.

Scott Dumar, 46, the Christian school’s longtime medical coordinator who still works there, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors and was placed on two years probation. Everett Graves, 40, who no longer works at the school near Stockton, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor.

Both men, along with Chris McElroy, were among five staff members charged with low-level felonies in September 2021 by Cedar County Prosecutor Ty Gaither.

The case against McElroy, who was accused of kicking and stepping on the fingers of a student who was doing pushups, was thrown out after the listed alleged victim did not appear at the preliminary hearing Thursday. Gaither asked that the hearing be rescheduled because two of his subpoenaed witnesses did not show, but his request was denied by Circuit Court Judge Thomas Pyle.

At the hearing, two 18-year-old boys testified that they bled in 2021 when Dumar scrubbed off tattoos they had given themselves with a pencil and ink, which Agape considered self-harm and a rule violation.

One of them, Jacob Jarrett, who attended the school for four months, said a classmate gave him a cross tattoo on one of his fingers during lunch. When Dumar removed it, Jarrett testified, he used the rough side of a sponge that was typically used to clean dishes and dipped it into a bin of rubbing alcohol. The teenager remembered it as “very” painful.

“It was a frightening experience,” Jarrett said.

Jarrett also described being manipulated by staff to think he was led to Agape by God, but after his “release,” as he called it, he realized the extent of the damage the school had done on him emotionally.

Like he did with the other victims who testified, defense attorney Craig Heidemann asked Jarrett if he and other students concocted lies to get Agape shut down. Jarrett acknowledged he wanted the school to close, but said he was telling the truth.

The other former student, Josh Janiszewski, guessed it took a “couple of hours” for two of his self-carved tattoos to be removed by Dumar. He lost layers of skin, and staff did not wrap it afterward, he testified.

Heidemann noted that Janiszewski wrote a letter to “child protective services” before the charges were filed that indicated he had not always been truthful.

In questioning from Gaither, though, Janiszewski said the letter was not sent to the Missouri Highway Patrol — which interviewed him in February 2021 about Agape — and did not mention Dumar or the tattoo removal.

After hearing from the former students, the judge determined Dumar’s reckless actions did not rise to the severity of felony charges. Pyle suggested he plead to the two misdemeanors. Gaither objected to probation, saying Dumar should get time behind bars.

If he violates his probation, Dumar could be sent to jail for a year.

Pyle made the same determination in allowing Graves, who like Dumar has no prior convictions, to plead guilty to a misdemeanor.

In that case, Will Stinson, 17, testified that Graves made him stand facing a wall one night. Graves grabbed his head and “slammed” it into a box that encased a fire extinguisher, he said. Stinson recalled crying and being dizzy as an area on his head began to swell.

Heidemann said Stinson had “added some things” to his story through his five statements about the incident and that his videotaped interview with investigators would show contradictions.

The defense attorney called Dumar as a witness in Graves’ case. Dumar testified that last week, he took photographs at the boarding school at the request of Heidemann, placing a measuring tape next to the area where Stinson claimed he was assaulted. The spot Stinson said his head hit was more than two feet lower than his listed height at the time, according to testimony.

Dumar and Graves had no comment after the hearing.

Emily Adams, a Missouri resident who previously attended a Mississippi boarding school before it was shut down for abuse, said she was “very disappointed” that Dumar and Graves were allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanors.

“They should’ve been felonies,” said Adams, who was among about a dozen spectators at Thursday’s hearing, adding that justice had “not prevailed.”

A fourth defendant, Trent Hartman, has already had his preliminary hearing and was bound over for trial on two felony counts of third-degree assault. The preliminary hearing for the fifth staffer, Seth Duncan, is set for next week.

Most of the men charged have strong connections to the school, beyond their employment.

Dumar and Duncan are former Agape students. Duncan is also the son-in-law of David Smock, a Stockton doctor who for years treated boys at the school and now is jailed in Springfield on more than a dozen child sex charges in Greene and Cedar counties.

Graves and Hartman have relatives who have worked at the school.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office, which has been assisting in the Agape investigation, had recommended prosecuting 22 staffers with a total of 65 counts on behalf of 36 students.

But Gaither charged just the five with 13 counts. Because of that, angry former students, advocates and lawmakers said the county prosecutor was standing in the way of justice.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt was among the frustrated. Shortly before the charges were filed, he sent a letter to Gov. Mike Parson asking for his office to be removed from the investigation because he believed Gaither didn’t intend to “seek justice” for all 36 students identified in the Highway Patrol’s investigation.

Early last year, former students testified at legislative hearings that were prompted by The Star’s initial investigation of Missouri’s boarding schools in 2020. They said they’ve tried to report alleged abuse at Agape and the now-closed Circle of Hope Girls Ranch for many years, but no one — especially Cedar County authorities — listened or tried to stop it from happening.

In July 2021, Parson signed a measure into law that — for the first time — gave the state some oversight over such boarding schools.

Charges against the five staffers last year made Agape the second unlicensed Christian boarding school in the state whose staff members have been charged in the past two years with abusing students. Both schools are in Cedar County.

Circle of Hope Girls Ranch near Humansville was closed in September 2020 after authorities removed about 25 students amid an investigation into abuse and neglect allegations. Owners Boyd and Stephanie Householder were charged in March 2021 and await trial on 100 criminal counts — all but one are felonies — including statutory rape, sodomy and physical abuse. Both have pleaded not guilty and were released in July 2021 on $10,000 bond pending trial, which is scheduled for November and December 2023.

Agape is one of at least a dozen reform schools that set up shop in Missouri, where there was no state oversight because of a nearly 40-year-old law that exempted faith-based facilities.