8 Arrested on Child Slavery Indictment

More than four years after the Ecclesia Athletic Assn.’s neighbors in Oregon began complaining that the Watts-based group was abusing children in its rural commune, the group’s controversial leader, Eldridge Broussard Jr., and seven followers were arrested Friday on charges of enslaving dozens of children.

They were accused in a 30-count federal grand jury indictment of conspiring to deny the civil rights of 29 children by holding them in involuntary servitude in Oregon and California for several years, beginning in 1986. The indictment was returned Thursday in Portland, Ore.

The eight were charged under the 13th Amendment (which abolished slavery) and related anti-slavery statutes passed in 1865 at the end of the Civil War.

Because their alleged actions culminated in the 1988 beating death of Broussard’s 8-year-old daughter, each faces a possible life sentence, plus five years for each of 29 counts of involuntary servitude.

After a massive investigation that consumed two years, and the joint efforts of the U. S. Justice Department’s civil rights division, the U. S. attorney’s office in Oregon and the FBI in Portland and Los Angeles, authorities rounded up six of the eight suspects just after dawn Friday.

Arrested in Oregon were Broussard, 38, and other key members of the group: Carolyn Van Brunt, 36; Josie Faust, 52, and Sherion Johnson, 35. In Los Angeles, authorities arrested Alvin (Biff) Broussard, 27, the leader’s brother, and Walter Barnett, 32. The remaining two suspects, William Chambers, 37, and Constance Jackson, 41, are serving time in state prison in Salem, Ore., for the Broussard girl’s death.

According to Assistant U. S. Atty. Stephen Peifer, the Oregon defendants pleaded not guilty and were held in the county jail pending a detention hearing Monday. He said he will ask that they remain in jail, without bail, out of concern for the safety of the child victims and witnesses who will be called to testify.

In Los Angeles, Assistant U. S. Atty. Deirdre Zalud said Alvin Broussard had agreed to be transferred to Oregon, while Barnett was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center pending a hearing Monday.

Trial is set for April 16 before U. S. District Judge Malcolm Marsh in Portland.

Ecclesia was an outgrowth of the Watts Christian Center, a Los Angeles group founded by Eldridge Broussard in the late 1970s to address the problems of inner-city black youths.

It moved about 100 members to farmland in Sandy and Clackamas, Ore., five years ago. The members’ children exercised, picked strawberries and were not allowed to attend school or receive medical treatment.

The 44-page indictment alleged that Ecclesia members used the supposed athletic skills of their children, some as young as 3, in a quest for money and fame for themselves.

“The children were compelled to perform long hours of rigorous exercises and were drilled in how to present themselves to the public for marketing purposes,” the indictment stated.

“The children who did not want to perform, who made mistakes and who did not fully comply with the defendants’ orders were struck with long wooden paddles and whipped with razor straps, braided cords and rubber hoses . . . and frequently were forced to watch other children being whipped and beaten,” the indictment continued.

Youngsters were isolated from their parents, other relatives and neighbors, forced to stand in line and remain silent for long periods, and subjected to “inadequate diet and nutrition, inadequate and overcrowded housing, inadequate school and systematic beatings,” to break their will, according to the indictment.

Ecclesia kept charts tallying the children’s punishments, covered the windows and played loud music to muffle their screams, and sometimes tied them to chairs or doors in the basement without food, the indictment said.

Soon after Ecclesia transferred operations to Oregon, its new neighbors began complaining to health and juvenile authorities about activities they observed. They said they resented the intrusion on their solitude and were disturbed by the group’s militarism and similarities to cults like the Rajneeshees and the Rev. Jim Jones’ People’s Temple.

In the summer of 1987, after news accounts surfaced about the group, Broussard announced that he was suspending Oregon operations.

Neighbors said, however, that the group simply went underground.

It was not until the death of Dayna Broussard, however, that a full investigation was launched. It resulted in the manslaughter convictions of four members and the removal of 53 children from 18 families.

Of those, 14 have since been returned to their parents and their cases closed by the court, according to Oregon Children’s Services spokeswoman Alice Galloway. Twenty-five children are living with their parents in Oregon, but are still monitored by social workers. Seven are living in California and Florida, still under court supervision, and another seven remain in foster care in Oregon.

Clackamas children’s services supervisor Jo Manske said the children have adjusted well to their new lives. She said they are flourishing in foster care, excelling in school once they catch up, and making friends.

“But,” she added, “they were anxious to return to their parents . . . and they are all still very connected to Eldridge Broussard; there is no doubt in my mind about that.”

The neighbors who pressured authorities to take action say they are relieved that Broussard is finally behind bars, but unhappy that it took so long.

“It’s brutal what went on,” said Randy Proctor, who lives across the road from Broussard’s farm in Sandy. “You just don’t do things like that. I’m very sad for the children, that it took a death before it started getting (the authorities’) attention.

“It was all there.”