A well-known MAGA pastor in Louisiana has been convicted of three felony counts of child abuse and a fourth for second-degree child cruelty.
John Raymond, the founder of Lakeside Christian Academy in St. Tammany Parish, was accused of wrapping packing tape around the mouths and heads of three 13-year-old boys as punishment for talking in class. A distraught teacher at the academy removed the tape from the boys’ heads with scissors about 45 minutes after Raymond subjected them to the sadistic discipline in his private office.
The jury deliberated for under an hour.
The Christian nationalist pastor, 60, is a twice-failed MAGA candidate for the Louisiana legislature, who ran on a platform supporting Donald Trump and advocating anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. His Christian academy bans homosexuality.
He was also the first contestant voted off the island on an early season of the reality TV show Survivor.
Police arrested Raymond after receiving a complaint in March 2022 from the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services about “potential child abuse” at the Lakeside school, where they learned of the packing tape incident. The three victims reported they had trouble breathing and “that the removal process was painful,” police said.
In a statement after his arrest, Raymond claimed he’d offered the kids the option of using transparent tape instead or calling their parents and suspending them.
“No student was ever treated with cruelty or harmed in any way,” he added.
Two months later, Raymond was arrested a second time on the second-degree child cruelty charge.
Police said Raymond held a four-year-old boy upside down by his ankles, “whipping his buttocks,” and in a separate incident covered his mouth and nose with his hand to stop a “tantrum.”
Witnesses reported the punishment prevented the child from breathing “to the point of him going limp.” Afterward, the boy was “unable to stand.”
In addition to the criminal charges stemming from those incidents, four parents sued Raymond over the abuse. That lawsuit detailed another episode of child cruelty at the school six years earlier when Raymond allegedly assaulted another child and caused “serious bodily injury” or “neurological impairment.”
While he awaited trial, Raymond announced his second failed run for Louisiana state representative.
“I feel it’s important people who believe in conservative Christian principles hold positions to create laws to direct our state properly,” Raymond said. “I’ve spent 23 years serving St. Tammany Parish in promoting Christian conservative values, and I feel compelled to run to bring those values into law.”
The convicted child abuser has testified in multiple hearings at the State House supporting bills requiring schools to post “In God We Trust” in classrooms, officially allow historical Bible courses to be taught in public schools, and for legislation rolling back LGBTQ+ rights.
He faces up to 40 years in prison.
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