ianstone
09-03-2010, 03:07 PM
Amish man charged with string of sexual assaults on children, including his own cousin
By Mail Foreign Service (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Mail+Foreign+Service)
Last updated at 7:12 PM on 3rd September 2010
Add to My Stories (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1308744/Amish-man-charged-string-sexual-assaults-children-including-cousin.html)
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/03/article-1308744-0B06B1BA000005DC-231_233x404.jpg Accusations: Chester Mast is accused of sexually assaulting five girls
A 26-year-old Amish man has been charged with sexually abusing five children, including his own cousin.
Chester Mast, who is a member of Missouri's Pike County Amish Association, was arrested after his own community turned on him
It has emerged that elders had tried to deal with the matter internally and only turned to the authorities for help after fresh allegations emerged.
Mast has now been charged with a number of sexual assaults, including rape and incest and will go on trial in December.
The married father-of-two is a member of a highly conservative Amish community which shuns modern amenities including electricity, phones and cars.
It is alleged he committed his first offence - against his own cousin - when he went to stay with family in Wisconsin in the summer of 2004.
According to the New York Times, the 20-year-old was meant to be apprenticed to his uncle, a carpenter.
But instead he allegedly raped his young relative, claiming it would cure her of stomach ache.
Mast, whose wife is expecting their third child, then returned to his home community in Missouri and was excommunicated for the assault.
He admitted his actions and was allowed to continue living with them. But fresh allegations surfacead in 2009, and he was once again thrown out for sexual misconduct.
Once again he recanted. But when new alleged assaults came to light this year, the community called in police.
He was arrested in May and now faces a trial in Missouri, where he is charged with two counts of of statutory rape, two of sodomy and one of sexual misconduct involving a child.
Mast will also go before a judge in Wisconsin charged with incest and repeated sexual assault of a minor.
The alleged victims are aged from five to 15. Three, including his cousin, are Amish.
The group very rarely seek help from the authorities. Instead, crimes and disputes are settled within the strict, remote communities.
Pike County, which is 95 miles northwest of St Louis, is a particularly conservative settlement whose inhabitants speak mainly in a dialect of German.
Transport is by horse-and-buggy while they eke out a living as butchers, farmers and cabinetmakers.
They arrived in the area in the 1940s and there are now around 70 families.
Mast, who was adopted by an Amish couple when he was five days old, is jailed on a $100,000 bond in Pike County. He has denied the charges.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/03/article-1308744-0B06C1E5000005DC-366_468x358.jpg Traditional: The Amish community in Pike County is one of the most conservative outposts of the order
The decision to refer the matter to the authorities has caused a deep fissure in the Amish community.
Sgt Sean Flynn, from Pike County Sheriff's Department, said: 'There is no grey area — people are either 100 percent for Chester, or they are 100 percent against him.
'Some people are holding it against some of the victims and their families for what they’ve done to Chester; some people think it should have happened a lot sooner. There’s really no middle ground.'
Jospeh Wagler, a Pike County bishop, told the New York Times that the community had tried to deal with the matter.
'We punished him, and he owned up to it. We put him away from the church, as a community,' he said.
Other members of the community described Mast as spoilt. Unlike most Amish children he was raised as an only child.
There were claims that he told grandiose lies, had a drink problem and had repeatdly threatened suicide.
Noah Schwartz, another of Mast’s uncles revealed that the family had seen the charges coming for years.
'It was a lost cause,' he said. 'I don't think we realised the seriousness of his crimes.'
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/03/article-1308744-0B074F3A000005DC-170_468x332.jpg The Pike County Amish Association is located in a remote area of Missouri
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1308744/Amish-man-charged-string-sexual-assaults-children-including-cousin.html#ixzz0yUkba9Bo
By Mail Foreign Service (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Mail+Foreign+Service)
Last updated at 7:12 PM on 3rd September 2010
Add to My Stories (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1308744/Amish-man-charged-string-sexual-assaults-children-including-cousin.html)
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/03/article-1308744-0B06B1BA000005DC-231_233x404.jpg Accusations: Chester Mast is accused of sexually assaulting five girls
A 26-year-old Amish man has been charged with sexually abusing five children, including his own cousin.
Chester Mast, who is a member of Missouri's Pike County Amish Association, was arrested after his own community turned on him
It has emerged that elders had tried to deal with the matter internally and only turned to the authorities for help after fresh allegations emerged.
Mast has now been charged with a number of sexual assaults, including rape and incest and will go on trial in December.
The married father-of-two is a member of a highly conservative Amish community which shuns modern amenities including electricity, phones and cars.
It is alleged he committed his first offence - against his own cousin - when he went to stay with family in Wisconsin in the summer of 2004.
According to the New York Times, the 20-year-old was meant to be apprenticed to his uncle, a carpenter.
But instead he allegedly raped his young relative, claiming it would cure her of stomach ache.
Mast, whose wife is expecting their third child, then returned to his home community in Missouri and was excommunicated for the assault.
He admitted his actions and was allowed to continue living with them. But fresh allegations surfacead in 2009, and he was once again thrown out for sexual misconduct.
Once again he recanted. But when new alleged assaults came to light this year, the community called in police.
He was arrested in May and now faces a trial in Missouri, where he is charged with two counts of of statutory rape, two of sodomy and one of sexual misconduct involving a child.
Mast will also go before a judge in Wisconsin charged with incest and repeated sexual assault of a minor.
The alleged victims are aged from five to 15. Three, including his cousin, are Amish.
The group very rarely seek help from the authorities. Instead, crimes and disputes are settled within the strict, remote communities.
Pike County, which is 95 miles northwest of St Louis, is a particularly conservative settlement whose inhabitants speak mainly in a dialect of German.
Transport is by horse-and-buggy while they eke out a living as butchers, farmers and cabinetmakers.
They arrived in the area in the 1940s and there are now around 70 families.
Mast, who was adopted by an Amish couple when he was five days old, is jailed on a $100,000 bond in Pike County. He has denied the charges.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/03/article-1308744-0B06C1E5000005DC-366_468x358.jpg Traditional: The Amish community in Pike County is one of the most conservative outposts of the order
The decision to refer the matter to the authorities has caused a deep fissure in the Amish community.
Sgt Sean Flynn, from Pike County Sheriff's Department, said: 'There is no grey area — people are either 100 percent for Chester, or they are 100 percent against him.
'Some people are holding it against some of the victims and their families for what they’ve done to Chester; some people think it should have happened a lot sooner. There’s really no middle ground.'
Jospeh Wagler, a Pike County bishop, told the New York Times that the community had tried to deal with the matter.
'We punished him, and he owned up to it. We put him away from the church, as a community,' he said.
Other members of the community described Mast as spoilt. Unlike most Amish children he was raised as an only child.
There were claims that he told grandiose lies, had a drink problem and had repeatdly threatened suicide.
Noah Schwartz, another of Mast’s uncles revealed that the family had seen the charges coming for years.
'It was a lost cause,' he said. 'I don't think we realised the seriousness of his crimes.'
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/09/03/article-1308744-0B074F3A000005DC-170_468x332.jpg The Pike County Amish Association is located in a remote area of Missouri
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1308744/Amish-man-charged-string-sexual-assaults-children-including-cousin.html#ixzz0yUkba9Bo