Aromas
– A court case involving an Aromas man charged with molesting a
13-year-old girl led several women to come forward to describe a
bizarre living situation they called a cult in the hills of San
Benito County.
Aromas – A court case involving an Aromas man charged with molesting a 13-year-old girl led several women to come forward to describe a bizarre living situation they called a cult in the hills of San Benito County.
Three women say Richarde Monde, portrayed himself as a counselor, brainwashed at least six female followers and fathered six children with three of them over two decades. He enticed them with the chance to be in a band called The Final Cut, they said.
Monde refused to comment about the criminal charges and the allegations that he’s a cult leader. He referred all comments to his attorney, Public Defender Greg La Forge, who said the allegations stem from a year-old custody battle between Monde and one of the women.
San Benito County Sheriff’s detectives began investigating Monde for a committing a lewd act with a child in July of last year and during interviews learned about the group’s alleged behavior, said Detective Chris Green. District Attorney John Sarsfield refused to comment on the molestation case.
The women lived with Monde, 55, in a gated and secluded house on seven acres on Chateau Drive in Aromas, said Shannon Eaton, a woman who left the group nine years ago after spending 17 years with Monde. She now lives in Santa Cruz.
The group moved into the house in 1992 and all of the women were sexually involved with Monde to some degree, Eaton said. Eaton worked in a mechanic shop with some of the other women in San Benito County, she said. Monde now works as a houseman at Eagle Ridge Golf Course in Gilroy, according to court documents.
Green said he’d heard claims of physical and emotional abuse during the course of his investigation and that there was one previous report of physical abuse to a child that was determined to be unfounded.
Not every aspect of the group was negative, Eaton said. She said Monde had all the women change their names to names that cast out all their negative personality traits and focused only on the positive. She originally changed her name to Spring but decided it was too “hippy” and then legally changed it to Shannon, she said.
Eaton said two women still live with Monde.
Sarsfield said he did not charge Monde with bigamy because California does not recognize common law marriages.
Monde is scheduled to appear in court for the lewd act charge Nov. 24 in San Benito County Superior Court.
