'THEY'D BEAT THEM FOR EVERY SIMPLE LITTLE THING THEY'D DO'
UtahZion
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'THEY'D BEAT THEM FOR EVERY SIMPLE LITTLE THING THEY'D DO'
By Michael Pearson, Staff Writer
Jason Bates doesn't go to church anymore. The church of his childhood was a
place for fear, not a house of prayer.
It was a place to be plucked from sleep for a whipping, for watching helplessly
as his sisters' dresses were lifted to reveal their young bodies for a beating.
Bates, his mother, Linda, and several siblings are former members of the Rev.
Arthur Allen's House of Prayer, the center of a child abuse investigation that
has left seven worshippers facing criminal charges and 41 children in state
custody.
"I get nervous just talking about it," Bates, 19, said Thursday, seven years
after his mother took him out of the church.
Six of the seven church members accused of child cruelty and related charges
have been released on bond pending trial. The seventh, Sharon Duncan, appeared
in court Thursday on charges of reckless conduct and child cruelty. She was
ordered held on $10,000 bail.
Child welfare investigators continued Thursday to question the 41 children
taken from church members last week.
Nineteen of the children have been examined by four child abuse specialists at
Hughes-Spalding Children's Hospital, led by Dr. Randell Alexander, director of
the Morehouse School of Medicine Center for Child Abuse.
Alexander would not say if any of the children had signs of physical abuse. "We
didn't hospitalize anybody, but beyond that I can't say much more."
The children were "reasonably outgoing," and "well-behaved, not stressed out."
He said they watched cartoons and ate lunch during the examinations, which
lasted about three hours, before being returned to state officials.
Allen has acknowledged using corporal punishment to steady unruly children, but
denies claims of abuse. "The Bible gives me the right," he said.
A hearing was scheduled for this morning to determine whether to proceed with
six child abuse claims dismissed Wednesday on a technicality. Hearings will be
held in the next few weeks to determine whether children in the remaining cases
were abused.
That question haunts Jason Bates, his sisters and his mother. Five siblings
remain members of the church, although they weren't among those taken by the
state.
"I can't imagine what they're going through," he said.
He said his years at the church were filled with unexpected beatings, sermons
laced with curse words and a stern sense of order.
"They'd sometimes have kids back there lined up" for whippings, Bates said.
"They'd beat them for every simple little thing they'd do."
His sister Joanna Bates said she was beaten when she was 12 after Allen accused
her of being a prostitute. She protested being exposed to the congregation
after the preacher lifted up her dress to spank her.
" 'You're used to men seeing you,' " she quoted Allen as telling her.
Linda Bates took several of her children out of the church after Allen
prohibited her from visiting Jason in the hospital after he suffered severe
injuries in a fire.
"It was like a cult. He controlled everything," she said of Allen.
In a 1993 court case, Allen accused Linda Bates of involvement in suspicious
injuries to her children. But Jason and Joanna Bates and another sister,
Darcus, say their mother was a hero.
"I really thank God that my mother came and got me," Jason Bates said.
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MINISTER HAS PRIOR CONVICTION FOR BEATING
He's released from jail in latest case
By Alan Judd and Jill Young Miller
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writers
The Rev. Arthur Allen Jr., was sent to jail in 1993 after ordering members of
his church to beat a 16-year-old girl with belts and then taunting the bleeding
girl when she cried.
Now, the pastor of the House of Prayer church in northwest Atlanta is at the
center of a massive abuse investigation that has led to the removal of 41
children from their parents' homes.
"He stood over me and said, 'I had you whining like a baby,' " the girl, Ivory
Johnson, testified during a 1993 trial in DeKalb County State Court.
Allen admitted in court that he ordered the August 1992 beating -- which he
said may have lasted from 20 to 30 minutes. The beating continued, he
testified, until the girl was "beaten into submission." The teenager had defied
his authority, Allen said, and she "had to be beaten, or she would take over
the church."
Allen, 68, said he and his church will be vindicated in the new case.
"I hope we are charged and I look forward to a trial by jury," he said
Wednesday morning in Atlanta Municipal Court.
Allen was released from jail Wednesday, one day after he and five members of
his church were arrested by Atlanta police on charges that they encouraged or
participated in the beatings of two children last month. The others, and a
seventh church member, Sharon Duncan, who turned herself in to authorities
Wednesday, were expected to remain in jail overnight. Two of the six church
members charged in the new case were convicted in 1993 along with Allen.
Earlier in the day, an Atlanta Municipal Court judge ordered Allen and five of
the others to stand trial on the charges, which were filed after state social
workers removed 41 children from the homes of church members.
The 41 children -- who range in age from 5 months to 17 years -- remain in
state custody. State officials would not say where the children are being held,
but a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Resources said they are together
and "are safe."
In a separate hearing Wednesday afternoon, a Juvenile Court judge delayed
hearing testimony on whether the first 19 children taken from church members
should remain in state custody. Six cases were dismissed because of a technical
error, but those children remain in custody.
A hearing to determine whether those six cases should go forward was scheduled
for Friday. The remaining cases were delayed until later this month at the
request of the parents, who said they were not prepared to defend themselves.
The whippings were administered at the urging and direction of Allen, police
Investigator C. Dean testified during the parents' preliminary hearing on the
criminal charges. One parent, James Smith, told Judge Elaine Carlisle that the
beatings were so common he had lost count of how many he had seen.
Children being punished were suspended in the air by their hands and arms and
beaten with switches, sticks or belts, Dean said. Photographs shown to the
parents in court showed welts that Dean said were between 1 and 3 inches long,
including one she described as the shape of a belt buckle.
While acknowledging their punishment had left marks on the children, the
parents denied that they had caused any injuries or that they had done anything
wrong.
"I did nothing more than chastise my child in a reasonable fashion," said
parent David Duncan Sr.
Juanita Blount-Clark, director of the state Division of Family and Children
Services, said Wednesday no additional children have been targeted for pickup.
But the investigation is continuing, she said.
"There's more to it than just that one incident that triggered it and got us
involved," she said.
Blount-Clark said Fulton County DFCS officials moved quickly because of the
potential for abuse to other children. "If we are erring," she said, "it is on
the side of caution based on what we've seen."
Atlanta police said injuries have been found on only two of the 41 children.
But D'Annacq Libercq, chief of the DFCS Special Investigative Unit, said the
other 39 children were taken because several of the families refused to
cooperate with investigators. Another family turned the children over to DFCS
without protest, according to Department of Human Resources spokeswoman Renee
Huie.
In interviews since news broke about the investigation, Allen has acknowledged
that he encourages "whippings" for "unruly" children. But he has denied that
the beatings constitute abuse.
He said that his 1993 conviction came after a girl was caught having sex in an
upstairs room during Bible study. He said he advised the girl's mother to "give
her a whipping." The next day, he said, the girl reported him to police and he
faced charges.
He said he was not surprised that he went to jail.
"The Bible says if you live godly," he said, "you're going to suffer
persecution."
But court records and the prosecutor from his 1993 trial tell a different
story.
On the night of the beating, the church was talking about marriage, said
Johnson, who had married a member of the church when she was 14. Allen "makes
you get married," she testified. A girl in the church raised her hand and told
the preacher that Johnson was trying to "poison their minds against marriage."
Johnson said she raised her hand and said the girl was lying.
"Brother Allen got mad," Johnson said.
He "told some people in the church to take me in the back and 'whoop her ass.'
" Two church members held her down, she said, while two more beat her with
belts. "Then the pastor called my mother and brother to the back of the room to
beat me, too."
"I dropped to the floor," Johnson testified. Two women helped her up and took
her to a bedroom in the house where the church was holding a service. "They
cleaned me up and cleaned up the blood."
Debra M. Sullivan, who prosecuted the case, said Wednesday that evidence showed
Johnson received "serious" injuries, including cuts and welts on her legs.
"Their theory was 'she was this wild child and we're making her better,' "
Sullivan said. "He [Allen] had a big thing about resisting authority."
Allen did not deny the allegations against him, Sullivan said.
"His attitude was defiance -- that people in the community were trying to tell
them what to do," she said. "It was, 'I know what I'm doing, you all don't know
anything.' "
Allen was convicted of battery and of being a party to the crime of battery. He
was sentenced to 30 days in the DeKalb County Jail, but served only 20 days.
The jury also convicted six other church members, including Johnson's mother
and brother. The others include Duncan and Emanuel Hardeman, who face charges
along with Allen in the new case.
At the 1993 trial, Johnson said she was no longer married, and that her
ex-husband had married another 14-year-old girl.
Johnson had been a member of the House of Prayer since she was a small child.
She didn't leave the church before the whipping because, according to court
documents, Allen had told her that "bad things would happen to her in the real
world outside the church."
[Staff writers Michael Pearson, Ron Martz, Joshua B. Good and S.A. Reid
contributed to this article.]