A cult leader has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two young girls he had persuaded to live with him as his “maidens”.
Victor Arden Barnard was extradited from Brazil to be tried for taking advantage of a group of 10 young women as part of the River Road Religious Fellowship in Minnesota.
The youngest of the girls he chose to live with him was just 12.
According to reports, the 55-year-old would dress as a shepherd; told his followers he represented Christ in the flesh; and encouraged them to have sex with him.
He would coerce the girls into sexual acts by telling them God approved and informed one girl she would remain a virgin because he was a “man of God”, according to authorities.
Two of his victims, Lindsay Tornambe and Jess Schlinsky, who endured years of abuse before going to the authorities in 2012 said they were glad he had been jailed.
Ms Schlinsky told a press conference: “Everyone knows the truth of what happened to us and I think that's what is most important to us.”
Ms Tornambe said: “I'm glad that he's been put away, but it's still something I'll have to live with every day.”
In her victim statement, Ms Tornambe said: “I used to see Victor as this powerful and monstrously strong man."
But she added: "I am his downfall. He cannot break me. […] He is the one that is weak. He will be known all over the world as a sexual predator.”
Barnard had evaded punishment by going into hiding in Brazil, where authorities believed he was being harboured by followers who remained faithful to him.
He was eventurally arrested in 2015 in an apartment next to a "paradisiacal" beach in northeastern Brazil, police said.
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