LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune
By Dan Swenson, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on April 03, 2014
New Bethany Home for Girls survived for three decades amid law enforcement inquiries, court battles and accusations of abuse. A chronology of key events in the compound’s legal history:
1971
New Bethany Home for Girls is founded in Arcadia, La., by Mack Ford, a preacher with the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church denomination.
1975
December: Ford is arrested on four counts of aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon after the Bienville Parish Sheriff receives a report that another employee of New Bethany fired a shotgun into the back of a car carrying four brothers and driving on a road that cuts through the compound. A witness would tell The Times-Picayune in 1983 that Ford was one of several to arrive at the scene after the four young men bailed out of the car and started running for safety — and that Ford emerged from his vehicle with a rifle. The case was never pursued in court, according to news accounts.
1980
Louisiana Department of Health and Human Resources tries to close the school for refusing to allow state inspection and licensing. A district judge rules the state lacks the authority to do so.
1981
May: L.D. Rapier, manager for New Bethany Home for Boys in Longstreet, La., is arrested and charged with cruelty to children after four boys who ran from the home say they were beaten. Ford is quoted in a wire story saying the school is being harassed, the boys can’t be trusted and the school uses “old fashioned ways — discipline.” The school is soon closed and the charges against Rapier are dropped.
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