MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A former member of a small religious sect said Monday that the woman arrested with its leader in Brazil was part of the group back when it was based in Minnesota.
Brazilian authorities on Saturday announced the arrest of self-professed minister Victor Arden Barnard, 53, leader of the River Road Fellowship, who was on the most-wanted list of the U.S. Marshals Service. He was being held pending extradition.
Barnard was charged in Pine County last April with 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct for allegedly having sexual relationships with two girls who were among around 10 girls and young women he had inducted into his “Maidens Group” at the fellowship’s secluded compound near Finlayson, about 90 miles north of Minneapolis.
The Marshals Service says Barnard moved to Washington state in 2010 after some adult members began questioning him, and several of his maidens and other followers joined him there. Barnard was captured late Friday in an apartment near a white-sand beach in northeastern Brazil, along with a 33-year-old woman. The Associated Press isn’t naming her in case she was a victim and because she hasn’t been charged.
But former River Road Fellowship member Jeff Sjolander of Duluth, who welcomed Barnard’s arrest, recognized her name and told The Associated Press that she had been one of the “maidens” in Finlayson, so he wasn’t surprised that she was with Barnard in Brazil.
The woman had been going to school in the Minneapolis area “when she fell in with the group, ended up moving to Finlayson and became a maiden with Barnard,” Sjolander said.
The criminal complaint against Barnard says one “maiden,” who’s not a subject of the charges, was a Brazilian citizen who got involved with the fellowship after she came to the U.S. to attend school. The complaint said she had to return to Brazil in 2009 when her visa expired. It also said Barnard then sent one of his alleged victims to Brazil to spend a few months with her, and that Barnard joined them there near the end of her stay.
Pine County Sheriff Jeff Nelson said he didn’t have enough details to say whether the woman arrested with Barnard been with the group in Finlayson. The sheriff declined to say much about the case because the investigation is continuing. Marshals Service officials did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday.
Sjolander said he was 20, fresh out of the Marines and wanting to find God in 1982 when he came across The Way International, a group often labeled a cult that authorities have called a precursor to the River Road Fellowship.
When The Way International splintered, Barnard led some followers from the Twin Cities and Pennsylvania to Finlayson. Sjolander said he joined them in the late 1980s. He said it had about 150 members at its peak, but the situation became increasingly ugly. The complaint said divisions arose when Barnard admitted to having sex with multiple married women in the group. Sjolander said he was eventually kicked out.
“One weekend I lost my wife, my kid, my job and my culture,” Sjolander said.
Sjolander said that started him on a downward spiral of depression, anxiety and homeless shelters. He said he’s now staying at a Duluth boarding lodge and getting counseling. He said he hopes Barnard spends the rest of his life in prison.
“These two girls and these 59 charges are just the tip of the iceberg, man,” he said. “It’s hardly even scratching the surface.”
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