Pineville, USA - A judge delayed a decision Monday on whether four southwest Missouri church leaders will go on trial on charges of repeatedly molesting young girls from their Ozarks religious commune.
Prosecutors dropped seven charges against two of the men, brothers Paul and Tom Epling, because of statute of limitations issues and won a continuance for a later preliminary hearing on the remaining five felony counts while they seek more legal guidance.
A preliminary hearing went ahead Monday for the Rev. Raymond Lambert and his wife, Patty Lambert, to determine whether the counts against them should go to trial.
All four have pleaded not guilty.
Circuit Judge Gregory Stremel, assigned to the case from neighboring Newton County, delayed a decision on a trial in order to hear more arguments from both sides on how offenses including sexual abuse were defined by state law in the mid-1990s, the time of some of the alleged acts.
No date was immediately set for further hearings or a decision.
Two women who alleged they were molested and abused by Raymond Lambert as teenagers testified during the hearing, with both saying Lambert had told them to give him their bodies as a way of serving God.
One victim is now 19 and the other is 28. Both were members of the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, a community on an isolated 100-acre farm in rural McDonald County that was headed by Lambert. The 19-year-old said Lambert was her uncle.
"He said I was to give my body to him as a service to God," the 28-year-old victim testified, repeatedly choking back tears.
Asked whether she believed Lambert's argument, she said, "Yes I did because I thought that he was my minister and I trusted him with my soul, basically."
Lambert is accused of repeatedly molesting the two over a period of years, starting when they were as young as 12. His wife is charged with taking part once while naked in bed with her husband and one of the victims.
The younger woman testified that she was repeatedly told to undress, that Lambert lay clothed on top of her when she was naked and that he had her perform oral sex on him in a series of incidents from 1999, when she was 12, until she left the compound this year at the age of 19.
On one occasion, the 19-year-old said, the wife of another church member walked in when she was performing oral sex on the pastor and showed her how to do so, then had intercourse with Lambert while the victim watched.
Lambert and his wife sat without visible reaction during the testimony.
The Epling brothers are alleged to have abused two other girls in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the victims were as young as age 4.
Prosecutors dropped a total of seven counts of statutory sodomy against Paul and Tom Epling but retained five similar felony charges after defense lawyers argued that state law at the time imposed a statute of limitations on some of the counts.
McDonald County assistant prosecutor Dan Bagley said the judge asked for additional legal arguments to support the remaining charges. No date was set for a decision, Bagley said.
The women's testimony also offered new details about conflicts inside the church that may have led to the allegations becoming public.
The charges were filed in August after at least one of the women came forward following an argument that prompted some church members to leave the community, investigators have said.
One woman said there had been a community meeting in April at which Raymond Lambert walked through the congregation challenging those present to say whether they had sex with him.
The woman testified that she had said no but that she told the group she had been naked in front of the pastor. She did not reveal more details of that meeting.