The onetime dean of a controversial Baptist boarding school is accused of arranging for a minor to be transported—in handcuffs and against his will—from his home state of California to the Missouri compound for troubled teen boys.
Prosecutors say the child had a domestic violence restraining order against his mother, who enlisted the reform school administrator to orchestrate the allegedly illegal pickup.
According to an indictment unsealed Tuesday, Agapé Boarding School’s former dean of students Julio Sandoval sent a “transport” team to grab the minor from a business in Fresno, confiscate his cellphone, and drive him 27 hours nonstop to Stockton, Missouri—hands fully manacled behind his back the entire time.
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Sandoval, 41, and the child’s mom, Shana Gaviola, 35, are now charged with interstate violation of a protection order and aiding and abetting. If convicted, they each face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Reached by phone by The Daily Beast on Wednesday, Sandoval declined to address the criminal case against him, saying, “Sir, I have no comment on that, sir. Thank you,” before hanging up. Sandoval now runs the Lighthouse Christian Academy in Piedmont, as well as his transport company, Safe Sound Secure Youth Ministries.
Anthony Capozzi, the attorney defending Gaviola in court, told The Daily Beast, “What’s in the indictment is not totally accurate to what happened. It only presents one side of the story. If Shana Gaviola had known there was a valid restraining order, this wouldn’t have happened. That’s all I can say at this point.”
Gaviola “will be fighting this case, and will take it to trial,” Capozzi added, saying that there “is a reason she did what she did. To protect her son. And to protect others. There’s so much more than what’s in this indictment. So much more.”
The indictment doesn’t name Sandoval’s company, but Safe Sound Secure Youth Ministries’ website notes it is “a transport service dedicated to safely transporting struggling teens to a teen help provider (boarding school, treatment center, etc.).”
“I am not of the ideology of necessarily making your child happy,” Sandoval writes in a letter to parents on the website. “Happiness will eventually arise when he finds himself growing as a young man and not a threat to himself and society.”
Sandoval’s criminal case is the latest in a slew of ugly allegations related to Agapé, where he worked for nearly 10 years and which has been under fire following former students’ claims of physical and sexual abuse.
Asked for comment on the new charges against Sandoval, the school said: “Agapé does not own, control or operate any transport service, nor does Agape sponsor or endorse any transport service.”
“Parents must sign a form as part of the application to enroll their son at Agapé titled ‘Notice of Non-Affiliation and Disclaimer’ where they acknowledge that transport services that may be owned or operated by persons who also work for Agapé in no way affiliates Agapé with the transport service.”
As The Daily Beast previously reported, former Agapé students are demanding state officials shut down the unlicensed religious school amid two dozen lawsuits from alumni—and the prosecution of five of its current and former employees.
The school’s former doctor, David Smock, is also charged with multiple child sex crimes and has pleaded not guilty. This week, a 14-year-old boy filed a civil suit against Agapé and Smock, claiming the doctor sexually abused him starting four years ago when he was a student.
Heiress and boarding-school abuse survivor Paris Hilton has also banged the drum to shutter Agapé and has tweeted at Missouri’s governor and attorney general: “How much more do you need to see[?] … This needs to end!”
Ex-students say the facility operated like a “cult” and “Christian torture compound,” where adults restrained and beat up kids, including in a room called the “Padded Palace,” and forced them into unpaid labor and extreme physical exercise such as hauling buckets of rocks for hours on end. As punishment, pupils say, staff withheld proper food and clothing, and also denied children medical care for injuries.
Sandoval’s name has repeatedly surfaced in reports on the accusations against Agapé, and in July, a former student’s lawsuit accused him of physical and emotional abuse.
The new criminal case against Sandoval can be traced back to July of last year, when the unnamed minor, who is identified only as “MV” in court records, for “Minor Victim,” asked a judge in Fresno to protect him from Gaviola.
“The petition alleged that… Gaviola had mistreated MV while in her care and that she was harassing MV and the family with whom MV resided,” the indictment states, adding that MV, on the same day, petitioned the court to be declared an emancipated minor, severing all legal ties between himself and Gaviola.
The next day, the judge granted MV’s request, prohibiting Gaviola from contacting her son “directly or indirectly,” according to the indictment.
“The restraining order advised… Gaviola that she could be charged with a federal crime if she made [MV] travel out of state with the intention of disobeying the order,” the filing explains.
Soon after, in August 2021, Gaviola allegedly contacted Sandoval and hired his transport firm to take the boy to Agapé. The school is not identified in the indictment, which notes that it billed itself as a reformatory of sorts for “at-risk or unmotivated boys,” and that Sandoval, while serving as the dean of students, was “also the founder of an agency that transported minors” to the school.
Sandoval then “agreed to send two individuals affiliated with the Boarding School and Transport Agency to take physical custody of MV,” the filing alleges.
The indictment states that Gaviola “learned where MV would be located” on the morning of Aug. 21, 2021, which happened to be his place of work. She shared the information with “members of the transport agency and others,” the indictment continues, and also handed them “a falsified court document for the purpose of coercing MV to travel to Missouri and to convince the members of the transport agency that they were authorized to physically secure and transport MV to the Boarding School in Missouri.”
That day, the transport team located MV at an unnamed business in Fresno. They handed over a “falsified court document” to the adult MV was then living with, and “took hold of MV, directed MV to get into a rented automobile, and handcuffed MV’s hands behind MV’s back,” it states. “The members of the Transport Agency removed MV’s iPhone 8 from MV’s possession. The two members of the Transport Agency drove MV for approximately twenty-seven consecutive hours to the Boarding School in Missouri. MV remained restrained during the entire drive.”
Presumably tipped off by the adult who witnessed MV taken away, law enforcement officers called Sandoval during the drive. They emphasized that what was happening was illegal under the terms of MV’s restraining order against Gaviola. But Sandoval told the team to carry on as he and Gaviola had directed, the indictment says.
Once they got to Missouri, it alleges that MV was “detained… within the facility,” despite requests from MV’s father that his son be released to his custody. The boy’s dad was eventually able to free his son, according to the Department of Justice.
Over the course of 11 days last August, Sandoval and Gaviola violated the terms of the protective order granted to MV by causing MV to travel between states—which makes the alleged crime a federal one—by “force, duress, coercion, and fraud,” prosecutors say.
On Tuesday, Gaviola surrendered to authorities at the Fresno County Jail, according to court filings. Sandoval was “informed through counsel” that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, according to an unsealing motion filed by prosecutors. However, he does not have a lawyer listed in court records. Sandoval appeared in court remotely yesterday via Zoom, with Gaviola, for arraignment.
The two are due to appear in court on Wednesday via video link at 2 p.m. local time for a detention hearing. Capozzi has argued for Gaviola, who was ordered detained on Tuesday by a judge, to be released pending trial.
Sandoval departed Agapé Boarding School sometime after five of its staffers were charged with child abuse in September 2021.
The Kansas City Star revealed that Sandoval was still dean of students last year when the Missouri Highway Patrol was investigating claims of abuse and seized a bag of discipline records from his office. In a search warrant application, police said Sandoval “admitted that pain compliance techniques were regularly used to discipline students.”
Former students including Robert Bucklin—who has given many media interviews and has recently led the charge to close Agapé—have raised questions about whether the school’s ties to law enforcement kept it running despite students’ complaints over the years. Sandoval has worked shifts at the county jail and his son is a corrections officer.
Meanwhile, according to the Star, two off-duty Cedar County sheriff’s deputies were employees of Sandoval's transport company, which allegedly collects troubled teens from their homes and drops them at boarding schools. Sometimes these pickups take place in the middle of the night and with handcuffs, students told the newspaper.
One former student, Josh Bradney, previously told The Daily Beast that soon after he became an Agapé resident at age 12 in 2014, Sandoval spit in his face and threw him to the ground. Bradney said on another occasion, Sandoval also called him a “fag**t” and kicked him down the stairs as he tried to flee students who were bullying him.
According to Bradney, Sandoval and fellow employees targeted outcasts like him, accused them of being gay, and goaded classmates to “beat them up until they’re straight.” Sandoval didn't return messages seeking comment when The Daily Beast ran that story.
A July lawsuit filed against the Christian school details more allegations of physical abuse against Sandoval, who is not named as a defendant.
The complaint, filed by a former student identified as T.D., says the teen arrived at the school in August 2013 and that Sandoval “would often use” him to “‘demonstrate’ wrestling moves by putting [him] in a headlock position, choking [him], and throwing him against walls.”
“During one of many incidents, Julio Sandoval pushed [his] head against the wall and ordered him to do push-ups as punishment,” the filing adds.
Sandoval declined to comment on this lawsuit and when contacted by The Daily Beast about it earlier this month, said he hadn’t viewed the complaint.
On Safe Sound Secure Youth Ministries’ website, Sandoval issues a letter to the “Troubled Parent/Guardian” seeking his company’s help.
“I have worked with minors who have lied to their parents countless times, and in return a parent fabricates circumstances in order to facilitate a transportation company,” Sandoval writes. “The transport is the first phase of this amazing journey called ‘change.’”
“Your child is more than just a number or client trying to get from point A to point B,” he adds. “If a parent could transition them to the school of choice, they would have done it. However a belligerent child would not allow that. So now we have started this journey on deceit and manipulation.”
