Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Smith denies hitting 2 boys at Roloff home

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Tuesday, June 5, 2001
Smith denies hitting 2 boys at Roloff home
Former supervisor says he tried to teach a lesson
By Jeremy Schwartz
Caller-Times

Smith

   Former People's Baptist Church supervisor Allen Lee Smith took the stand in his own defense Monday, contradicting the sworn testimony from two former residents who accused him of tying them up, beating them with a stick and placing them in a deep pit.
   Smith faces two counts of unlawful restraint in connection with the March 28, 2000 incident, which left one of the former residents, Justin Simons, 20, with two sprained ankles.
   The incident brought a national spotlight to the inner workings of the People's Baptist Church and Ministries, a group of homes for troubled young adults also known as the Roloff Homes after the home's evangelical founder, Lester Roloff.
   Smith told the jury he never hit Simons and 18-year-old Aaron Cavallin with a stick, nor did he force them to run through open brush country after they tried to escape from the homes, as both men testified.
   Instead, Smith said he made them run on a dirt road to teach them a lesson.
   "I felt both were headed to correctional facilities," Smith said. "Both young men had shown a propensity to violence and unless they changed their lives around they were headed for prison."
   Smith said he placed them in a pre-dug pit and told them to dig throughout the night. But Smith insisted that if either of them asked to come out he would have called their probation officers and sent them home.
   According to earlier testimony, Simons sprained both ankles when he tried to jump over the 15-feet-wide pit sometime during the night.
   Smith also contradicted testimony from Simons who said he said he wasn't taken to see a doctor for a couple of days after the incident. Smith said Simons was taken to a Flour Bluff clinic the morning of his injury, a claim backed up by testimony from Roloff Homes employee Jason Langford. Smith also denied Simons' claim that he told him to lie about his injuries.
   Much of the day's testimony centered on the safety of the pit, as Corpus Christi Director of Engineering Angel Escobar testified the pit posed a substantial risk of collapse.
   "I would not enter the pit unless some precautions were taken for my safety," Escobar said.
   Defense witness Mark Rock, a geo-technical engineer, characterized the risk of the pit collapsing as "very small."
   Smith's attorney, Grant Jones, also brought in witnesses who questioned the Nueces County Sheriff's Department measurement of the pit as 12 feet deep. Craig Despain, a People's Baptist Church employee who oversaw the digging of the pit - meant to be a drainage ditch - said the pit was only six to seven feet deep.
   "That backhoe won't even dig that deep," he said.
   Smith's co-counsel Michael Kolpack said the discrepancy may have come from measuring from the side of the pit to its bottom center instead of from a spot above the middle of the pit.
   In the morning, Jones twice asked for a mistrial after prosecutor Michael McCaig questioned witnesses about a 1999 complaint of neglect and physical abuse that resulted in a lifetime ban from the Roloff Homes of Faye Cameron, wife of ministry head Wiley Cameron Sr. Neither request was granted by 148th District Judge Rose Vela.
   Testimony, including Smith's cross examination, is expected to finish today.


Contact Jeremy Schwartz at 886-3779 or schwartzj@caller.com

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