Survivor alum John Raymond, who competed on the show in 2002, is on trial for alleged child cruelty.
Raymond, 62, was accused of taping children’s mouths closed as a form of punishment at Lakeside Christian Academy, the Louisiana school he founded. Raymond faces three felony charges of child cruelty in a trial that began on Tuesday, September 17. He is also charged with second-degree cruelty for allegedly placing his hand over the mouth of a 4-year-old student until they went limp.
Raymond has fervently denied the allegations.
“People in the community know that he has spent his whole life trying to make this a better place and that he didn’t wake up one day and decide to abuse children,” Joe Long, an attorney for Raymond, told local NBC affiliate WDSU 6 in a statement. “What he did was, as a disciplinarian, reasonably discipline the children. They were not hurt.”
In his own statement to the outlet, Raymond denied ever treating “a child cruel in [his] life.”
“I’m innocent of the charges that are against me,” Raymond stressed. “I love all of our students. And we believe that the law will prevail, and we’ll be completely exonerated.”
During Tuesday’s trial, Raymond and Long further asserted that the defendant’s behavior was in line with the “biblical teaching and principles of Christian education,” according to the Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. District attorneys, however, called Raymond’s actions “criminal.”
“He put tape over their mouths and sent them back to class … where they sat, humiliated,” assistant DA Christina Fisher alleged in her opening remarks. “The principal didn’t approve. Neither did the parents.”
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Raymond, a local pastor at Louisiana’s New Horizon Church, founded Lakeside Christian Academy in 2016. According to the school’s website, the facility is “the educational arm of New Horizon Church, the ministry of John Raymond.”
The description added that Raymond’s philosophies help “us to fulfill the Great Commission by discipling the next generation and raise Godly leaders.”
Raymond served as the school’s headmaster until 2022 when he was first accused of child cruelty.
Decades earlier, Raymond was one of the castaways on Survivor. He appeared on 2002’s season 5, where he was the first contestant to get eliminated during the Thailand-held competition. Known as “Pastor John,” Raymond had been drafted to the Chuay Gahn tribe but never got along with his fellow contenders.
If you or someone you know is experiencing child abuse, call or text the Child Help Hotline at 1-800-422-4453.