TEXAS
American-Statesman
By Eric Dexheimer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Karen Jonson first appeared in the American-Statesman’s pages in September 2008, but not in a way recognizable to readers. She was one of five anonymous women I profiled who said they had been groped or pressured for sex by Prakashanand Saraswati and Kripalu Maharaj, the spiritual leaders of the Barsana Dham Hindu temple south of Austin.
The story was a continuation of our coverage of Prakashanand, who six months earlier had been arrested while getting off a plane in Washington, D.C., and charged with 20 counts of indecency with a child. The charges were based on the recollections of two young women who said they’d been molested by Prakashanand as teenagers while growing up on Barsana Dham in the 1990s.
While reporting that story, I tapped into a nascent network of ex-members who said the girls weren’t the only ones who’d been subjected to sexual advances from gurus while living at the ashram — five adult women had, too. Jonson, one of those women, eventually became one of my primary contacts, putting me in touch with former devotees and describing details of life at the ashram, where she had lived and worshiped for 15 years.
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