Rukmini, a student at the Los Angeles gurukula, describes a teacher attacking her with a metal pole. Her best friend, Jahnavi, says she was made to lick up a drink she'd spilled on the ground. More painful was being forced to sleep naked in a bathtub because she wet her bed. Sociologist Rochford says it is impossible to know how many of the approximately 2,000 boarding school students were abused. Even the most loyal Hare Krishnas tend to agree with his assessment that much of the harm occurred because the movement that prized celibacy did not value its children.
Few students recall telling their parents about the abuse.
Letters were censored, family visits rare. Bressack, for one, says he barely knew his mother. Only recently did she learn of the abuse. Hare Krishnas debate how much their leaders knew about child abuse and when. In 1986, former devotee Kenneth Capoferri was convicted of seven counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with young children at a child care center run by the Hare Krishnas in Los Angeles.