Heartland Academy official acquitted of child abuse

Associated Press WriterWAYNESVILLE, Mo. (AP) -- Jurors found a boarding school official innocent of child abuse charges for sending misbehaving teens to work in manure pits at Heartland Christian Academy.

It took jurors just 18 minutes to find Charles Robert Patchin, 34, innocent of all three felony child abuse charges Thursday morning. The charges stemmed from Heartland's former practice of sending misbehaving youths to work in manure pits. The incidents happened in March and April 2001.

Patchin's attorney slapped him on the back after the verdict was read. Heartland founder Charles N. Sharpe, Patchin's grandfather, gave a thumbs-up signal to other Heartland supporters watching from courtroom benches.

"I am just relieved at the moment, just glad to get this behind us," Patchin said. "... The regret that I have is that it came to this."

Heartland supporters hugged each other outside the courtroom.

"We thank God that we have this opportunity to go free," Sharpe said.

Three boys testified that they exaggerated their claims, acknowledging that the manure was not as deep as they had at first said, or that they had not done the work as often as they originally told investigators. Two of the boys were prosecution witnesses.

Jury foreman Roger Beam, 31, of Dixon, said deliberations "didn't take long. We discussed it, and we felt the state didn't prove to the extent necessary to convict him."

Juror Carol Thompson, 66, of Devils Elbow, said prosecution witnesses didn't help the state's case.

Asked whether she thinks the state should proceed with charges against other Heartland employees, Thompson shrugged and said, "I don't think there would be any chance" of convicting them.

Four other people are charged in the manure pit incidents, and four more are accused of striking students. Patchin's case was the first to go to trial, though a father pleaded guilty in November to felony child abuse because his 16-year-old son reportedly received dozens of strikes on his buttocks and back with a wooden paddle while at Heartland.

Lewis County Prosecutor Jules DeCoster said no decision has been made about whether to proceed with other prosecutions, but he said he would weigh whether the charges should be altered.

"We'd be very foolish, and we wouldn't be doing our jobs, if we didn't go back and look at it again," he said.

He called Patchin's prosecution "the weakest case to make."

In closing arguments Thursday morning, Patchin attorney Robert Haar reminded jurors that boys had acknowledged exaggerating their claims about the manure pit work.

Haar told jurors there is "no evidence of physical, psychological or emotional problems" from the manure pit work, which he called "a chore that has gone on for centuries."

Patchin had testified that the boys sent to the manure pits did not wear protective clothing.

Assistant Attorney General Tim Anderson told jurors that sending children into the manure pits was not discipline, and that it was degrading, cruel and inhuman.

"What can you do to a child that is more dehumanizing than to put them into a pit of waste?" Anderson said. "... The message we are sending by that is, 'The value of that child is waste."'

"We would not treat an animal the way these children were treated," he said.

In combative cross-examination on Wednesday, Patchin declared he still thinks the manure pit punishment is "fine." He said the punishment was his idea.

"I would have sent my own kids there," he declared in a sometimes testy exchange with Anderson.

But Patchin, a Newark father of three, acknowledged that hand-shoveling of manure at Heartland's massive dairy operation served no useful purpose, because the waste from 3,000 cattle was so abundant. Dairy employees usually used heavy equipment to handle the manure.

He acknowledged that the boys were not given wading boots or gloves, that he did not ask whether they had received shots; and that he didn't seek permission from the boys' parents to send them into the manure.

Heartland sits in a remote area about 150 miles north of St. Louis. The trial was moved to Pulaski County, in south-central Missouri and about 150 miles away from the school, because the defense wanted another judge.