MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Posted by: Jennifer Brooks Updated: March 4, 2015
Fugitive cult leader Victor Barnard is behind bars in Brazil, but getting him behind bars in Minnesota could take years.
Frustrated Pine County officials are waiting to hear whether Barnard is going to fight the extradition order that would bring him back to face 59 counts of sexual assault against young girls in his congregation. Barnard, 53, spent three years on the run in Brazil before his arrest Friday in the coastal resort town of Pipa.
“At the very earliest, one month. At the very latest, we’re talking three years,” said newly elected Pine County Attorney Reese Frederickson. “We don’t know. If he waives extradition, it will be one month. If he wants to fight it, it’s a one- to three-year process, depending on his life circumstances.”
Barnard left Pine County in 2010 bankrupt and under a cloud of suspicion for his behavior during his years at the head of the River Road Fellowship in Finlayson. After charges were filed a year ago, he was able to evade an international manhunt with the aid of one of his followers — a young woman from a wealthy Brazilian family.
The woman, identified by Brazilian media as 33-year-old Cristina Liberato, had been a member of the fellowship since she was in her teens. Former fellowship members identified her as one of Barnard’s “maidens,” young women between the ages of 12 and 24 he separated from their families and brought to live near him in the isolated religious community.
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