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Brave girl revealed abuse, prosecutor says
Sexual, mental: Suspect indicted in alleged assaults on young girls.
If a brave 15-year-old girl had not secretly mailed a letter last year alleging her family’s “religious leader” had been sexually and mentally abusive for the past three years, the “seven-person cult” inside a Reno apartment would have gone unnoticed, a prosecutor said.
Raymond Russell George, 57, was indicted last week by a Washoe County grand jury, accused of sexually abusing the girl and her 13-year-old sister. Their parents had promised both girls in marriage to him, authorities said. George considered the girls his wives and allegedly sexually assaulted them in decorated rooms he called the “pleasure” and “fantasy” rooms, authorities reported.
George’s common-law wife, Mary Smalley-George, and the children’s parents, Doug and Marnie Moulton, are incarcerated for “serving up the children” and allowing George to allegedly abuse them, said Jim Shewan, a deputy district attorney. The Moultons and George’s wife, 53, pleaded guilty last year to one count of willful endangerment of a child, records show.
Shewan said George brainwashed the entire group under the guise of biblical teachings. He said they lived like a “minicult” and did not claim any organized religion. Both couples also let the children smoke marijuana and refused to allow them to go to school, he said. The Moultons lived downstairs from the Georges.
George also was indicted last week for allegedly inflicting corporal punishment on the girls’ brother when the 12-year-old boy didn’t obey his Bible teachings.
Authorities said the girls told detectives they were not forced to have sexual relations with George but did so because “that’s what husbands and wives do.”
The alleged abuse occurred between 2001 and September 2003 in his apartment in the 4300 block of Barker Lane, records show.
Last month, George was found mentally competent to stand trial after he had been held in the state mental hospital in Sparks since his September 2003 arrest. A month after his arrest, mental health officials had declared he was mentally incompetent to stand trial.
It wasn’t until the oldest daughter discreetly provided a letter to her out-of-state grandmother — telling her about the alleged abuse — that the two families were investigated, police said.
“They were basically imprisoned for three years,” Shewan said of the children. “That was one tough little girl to send that letter out.”
Marnie Moulton, 34, a former schoolteacher in California, worked at a Reno preschool before her arrest, records show. The Moultons were not present when the alleged abuse occurred.
The girls and their brother have since been placed with their out-of-state grandparents. Shewan said they are in school and doing better.
“I have never seen anything like this before,” Shewan said of the allegations. “We read about this stuff, but I have never been involved in case this bizarre. There was a lot of brainwashing.”
Shewan likened the case to that of Utah teen Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped by a religious couple and considered by her male abductor as his wife.
“They were isolated and could have run, but they were just kids and didn’t know anybody,” Shewan said. “They thought they had nowhere to run. They thought they had no choice.”
Shewan said the girls believed they had to be subservient, and no one was allowed to question George, whom they called “Jacob.” “George was the religious leader of the family, and they did whatever he said,” Shewan said. “He is his own religion and they were their own little cult.”
George allegedly forced the girls to eat raw coffee beans, controlled what they wore and deprived them of sleep, court records show. The girls were not allowed to leave their home and only communicated with their parents and the Georges, Shewan said.
Doug Moulton, 37, said at his sentencing hearing that he had met George 15 years earlier, and the two traveled across the country preaching the word of the lord. Both couples came to Reno in 2001 and moved in together. The Moultons later moved downstairs when management complained too many people were living in one apartment, police said.
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