UPDATED::8 boys removed from Burnet County boarding home amid abuse allegations

 UPDATE:: Conversion Therapy Ringleaders Arrested for Trafficking Boys

The former head of a conversion therapy camp in Alabama who allegely used a belt to beat the “the [gay] demon” out of boys who were sent there has been indicted by a grand jury for human trafficking through a new religious home he and his wife set up in Texas.

Gary Wiggins and his wife, Meaghan Wiggins, who ran the Joshua Home, an alleged “home for troubled boys” in Burnet County, Texas, are accused of trafficking underage boys and forcing them into labor services, according to Austin TV station KXAN.

A year ago, eight boys between the ages of 10 and 17 were removed from the home during a raid; theWigginses had relocated their operation from Pineville, Mo., before authorities there could investigate similar charges. At the time of the raid in May of 2018, the boys made no accusations against the couple that warranted criminal charges. The Wigginses left the state and returned to Alabama until recently, when investigators tracked them down and returned them to Burnet County.

Officials have removed eight boys from a boarding home in Burnet County as investigators look into whether it might have been using them illegally for a lawn care service and moving company, Sheriff Calvin Boyd said Friday.

The sheriff said that Gary Wiggins, the operator of the Joshua Home, has not been charged.

Officials had received allegations of abuse, fraud and human trafficking at the home near Bertram, the sheriff’s office said in a news release Friday morning, but Boyd declined to comment on those allegations in his afternoon news conference. The release said the home, which is affiliated with a nonprofit called the Joshua Home Ministries, “purports to be a residential home for troubled boys.”

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Wiggins moved the facility from Pineville, Mo., to the Bertram area in May, Shell said. The Kansas City Star reported in May that the McDonald County sheriff’s office was looking into whether there was anything illegal going on at the home that Wiggins ran in Pineville.

8 boys removed from Burnet County boarding home amid abuse allegations

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