Hindu Guru Sentenced to Prison for Groping Girls, The Statesman, March 9, 2011

Hindu Guru Sentenced to Prison for Groping Girls

The Statesman
March 9, 2011

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/courts/entries/2011/03/08/guru_still_at_large_sentencing.html?cxntcid=breaking_news

Update: A Hays County jury today sentenced Prakashanand Saraswati to 14 years in prison and a $10,000 fine on each of 20 felony counts for molesting girls on the Barsana Dham ashram in Driftwood during the 1990s.

Prakashanand, 82, didn't show up for the punishment phase of his trial and is still at large. District Judge Charles Ramsay will decide later whether the Hindu guru's prison sentences are to be served concurrently.

Last week the jury found Prakashanand, also known as Shree Swamiji, guilty of indecency with a child by sexual contact, based on his repeated groping of two teenagers whose families lived at the ashram he founded southwest of Austin. Now 27 and 30 years old, the women brought charges against the guru three years ago.

Earlier: Prosecutors this morning asked a Hays County jury to sentence Prakashanand Saraswati to 20 years in prison — 400 years total — for "each and every" one of the 20 criminal counts on which the guru was convicted of molesting two girls on the Barsan Dham ashram.

Prakashanand, 82, hasn't shown up for the punishment phase of his trial and is still at large. Last week the jury found him guilty of indecency with a child by sexual contact, stemming from encounters that took place in the 1990s with two teenagers, now 27 and 30 years old.

"This defendant is not a good candiate for probation because he can't even make it to the rest of the trial," said Hays County assistant district attorney Kathy Compton.

The guru's defense attorneys told the court that their elderly client's various ailments — coronary disease, hypertension and back pain— make him too infirm to be in prison.

"To put him in a penitentiary setting at his age with these type of physical disabilities would be a death sentence for Swamiji," said Jeff Kearney, his lead attorney.

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Prakashanand, also known as Shree Swamiji. Spokesmen for the ashram that he founded in Driftwood say they don't know where he is.

Peter Spiegel, a wealthy devotee who posted a $1 million cash bond that was forfeited when Prakashanand failed to appear in court yesterday (pictured), testified that he doesn't know the guru's whereabouts, either. Spiegel also signed a $10 million indemnity agreement in 2008, in exchange for the court allowing Prakashanand to travel abroad while he was awaiting trial. However, the guru's passport was revoked last year.

The prosecution has rested its case in the sentencing hearing before District Judge Charles Ramsay, and it's now the defense's turn. Witnesses for the guru this afternoon are testifying to Prakashanand's ill health, and the good works that the Barsana Dham ashram performs.