Guru convicted of abusing followers children fled justice - CNN.com

As young girls in the 1990s, Shyama Rose and sisters Kate and Vesla Tonnessen loved living in Barsana Dham, the Austin, Texas, ashram of the International Society for Divine Love.

"Being a kid at Barsana Dham was pretty amazing," Kate Tonnessen, now in her 30s, recalled. "To live on 200 acres of what was about as wild land as you can get in Texas."

They, their parents and other families moved to the ashram in pursuit of enlightenment under the guidance of their spiritual leader, Prakashanand Saraswati, whom they called "Swamiji," an honorific Hindu term for a guru. 

"It was sort of understood that Swamiji was God, just on earth," Vesla Tonnessen told CNN's "The Hunt with John Walsh." "He held absolute power over anything."

The children of the ashram loved Saraswati. "We always felt as kids that he seemed like an Indian version of Santa Claus," said Kate Tonnessen. 

"He was very affectionate with everybody, and then the kids, he was really, like, cuddly and he'd give you hugs and kisses that just felt like your grandpa. But then sometime his kisses got weird."

,,,

Saraswati had a guru of his own, a well-known holy man from India named Kripalu who came to the United States in 2000 to spend time at Barsana Dham. 

In a later online search, Kate Tonnessen discovered that Kripalu had faced accusations of rape in India and in Trinidad.

"I couldn't stop shaking, recalled Tonnessen. "I clicked on it, and all these pages opened up; these news articles about how Kripalu had been accused by a young Trinidadian girl of rape."

As Vesla Tonnessen recalled, the Kripalu allegations changed the equation for the three women. Knowing that Saraswati served and worshipped Kripalu, could the arrival of the guru's guru put other girls still living in the ashram at risk?

Guru convicted of abusing followers children fled justice - CNN.com

See also:

Search continues for Indian 'guru' who abused children in Texas ashram

UPDATE::Army War College Revokes Senator John Walsh's Degree After Plagiarism Investigation

An update to this story from July,,,

U.S. Sen. John Walsh of Montana says the U.S. Army War College has revoked his master's degree after an investigation into plagiarism allegations.

The Carlisle, Pennsylvania, college launched the probe in August after The New York Times published a story showing Walsh borrowed heavily from other sources for a research paper he wrote in 2007.

Walsh's office released a statement Friday saying the Army War College has revoked his status as a graduate. The statement says the senator disagrees with the findings but accepts the decision.

Army War College Revokes Senator John Walsh's Degree After Plagiarism Investigation

Sen. John Walsh Drops Out Of Senate Race

Sen. John Walsh (D-MT) has decided to drop out of the race for U.S. Senate, he announced on Thursday.

"I am ending my campaign so that I can focus on fulfilling the responsibility entrusted to me as your U.S. senator," Walsh said. "You deserve someone who will always fight for Montana, and I will."

Walsh's decision follows a report in The New York Times in July which said that Walsh plagiarized significant parts of his master's thesis.

Since then Walsh had reportedly been trying to decide whether to continue running in the race or not. Even before the plagiarism story broke Walsh had an uphill battle to victory and faced a formidable challenge in Rep. Steve Daines, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate.

According to National Journal, Walsh announced his decision to drop out in a call with staffers. His wife was "openly sobbing" while she thanked members of Walsh's campaign, National Journal said.

Sen. John Walsh Drops Out Of Senate Race

John Walsh, Democrat, Confronts Questions of Plagiarism - NYTimes.com

Something I pondered as I read through various articles concerning this incident, "Questions have previously been raised about Mr. Walsh’s résumé and conduct, though they were comparatively minor."

In an interview outside his Capitol Hill office on Tuesday, after he was presented with multiple examples of identical passages from his paper and the Carnegie and Harvard essays, Mr. Walsh said he did not believe he had done anything wrong.

“I didn’t do anything intentional here,” he said, adding that he did not recall using the Carnegie and Harvard sources.

Asked directly if he had plagiarized, he responded: “I don’t believe I did, no.”

On Wednesday, a campaign aide for Mr. Walsh did not contest the apparent plagiarism but suggested that it be viewed in the context of the senator’s long career. She said Mr. Walsh had been going through a difficult period at the time he wrote the paper, noting that one of the members of his unit from Iraq had committed suicide in 2007, weeks before the assignment was due.

The aide said Mr. Walsh, who served in Iraq from November 2004 to November 2005, had “dealt with the experience of post-deployment,” but said he had not sought treatment.

Later, the senator, in an interview with The Associated Press, contradicted the aide, saying that he was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder when he used the authors’ work without credit, and that he would consider apologizing to the scholars for doing so. He said he was currently taking antidepressant medication.

John Walsh, Democrat, Confronts Questions of Plagiarism - NYTimes.com