Community Of Jesus Subject Of Child Labor, Trafficking Suit

 ORLEANS – A federal lawsuit filed against the Community of Jesus and two other local nonprofits alleges that the community resorted to unpaid child labor and trafficking in building its Brewster performing arts center. 

 The Community of Jesus, Arts Empowering Life, Inc., and Performing Arts Building Foundation, Inc., are listed as defendants in the civil suit, which was filed July 17 in U.S. District Court in Boston.

 The plaintiff, Oliver Ortolani, is one of a number of boys who were “subject to forced labor and trafficking” through their role in helping build the community’s performing arts center, the suit alleges. Specifically, the suit alleges violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Actions Act (RICO), and also alleges “unjust enrichment” by the defendants.

 “During their time constructing the Center, Ortolani and the other children had no way of refusing to perform the intense manual labor that Defendants demanded,” according to the suit. 

 It’s further alleged that adults supervising the work had children up earlier than 5 a.m., “gave them 10 minutes for breakfast” and had them working “nine to 16 hours a day without proper safety gear, training or breaks.” It is also alleged that child workers were “assaulted” or “shunned by the Community” if they complained or showed “even mild frustration with the harsh regime.” 

 Children also were allegedly kept out of school under the pretense that the work on the center constituted “educational coursework,” according to the suit. Community members also allegedly hid children from government inspectors when they visited the project worksite.

 Jeff Robbins, the attorney representing the Community of Jesus, called the suit "frivolous" when reached by phone Friday. He said that Ortolani’s parents were both directly involved in the center’s construction. Robbins said Ortolani’s father was a principal foreman on the project, while his mother was involved in overseeing several facets of the project, including the volunteer labor.

 “This lawsuit seems to be a substitute for whatever issues this young man has with his parents,” he said.

A Culture Of Control

 Founded in 1970 by Cay Anderson and Judy Sorenson, the Community of Jesus has grown to include more than 200 members who live in a compound of “jointly owned, Community controlled homes” off of Rock Harbor Road. The community is led by a “Prioress,” who, according to the suit, is currently Karen Moore, and was Betty Pugsley at the time of the allegations, as well as a “Subprior,” identified in the suit as Rick Pugsley. The compound is dominated by the huge Church of the Transfiguration.

 The suit describes the Community as a “‘high demand/high control” group that dominates all aspects of its members’ lives and thinking. The Community discourages “diversity of thought,” the suit alleges, and demands of members “absolute obedience to its Leadership without question.”

 “Questioning the Community Leadership, however slightly, is viewed as insubordination,” according to the suit.

 Perceived insubordination could result in “light sessions,” instances where members are publicly shamed and called out “to the point where they break down and beg for forgiveness,” the suit alleges.

“If the subject resists, the criticisms intensify and sometimes turn physical,” according to the suit. “Members have had water thrown in their faces, been slapped, or endured other physical abuse. When one light session is not enough to ‘break’ the target, it resumes the next day.”

In more extreme cases, community members are subjected to “hard times,” which the suit describes as “a period of isolation and ostracism."

 The suit claims that children in the Community often are coerced into participating in musical, choral, theater and other “artistic endeavors” promoted by the community. Those who resist have been labeled as “selfish” and “bad community members,” the suit alleges.

 “The social pressure to join is so intense that almost all capitulate and agree to participate,” according to the suit.

 In 1988, Arts Empowering Life was formed to promote the community's “musical and theatrical endeavors” nationwide, and to drive proceeds from those performances to the Community, according to the suit. 

 The suit says that AEL began eying the construction of a new performing arts building in Brewster to accommodate the growth of the Community’s artistic programming. Planning for the new building started in late 2018, according to the suit, while the Performing Arts Building Foundation was established in 2020.

 Ortolani, 18, was born into the community and was a member until November 2023, according to the suit. His mother, Ellen, also grew up in the community, while his father, David, attended Grenville Christian College in Canada, a boarding school associated with the Community.

 The suit alleges that Community leaders frequently separated children from their parents to live with other members of the community to lessen their dependence on their families. According to the suit, Ortolani was first separated from his parents when he was 9, and that he moved within the community “at least 20 times within 16 years.”

 “While Ortolani lived with other families, he rarely saw his own parents,” the suit claims. “He was encouraged not to seek them out or interact with them at all.”

 Ortolani, who currently works in construction, according to the suit, allegedly performed various forms of work in the Community, including landscaping, cooking, house repairs and “setting up lighting and scaffolding for Community events and performances.”

 That work would carry over into construction of the performing arts building. According to the suit, Ortolani was one of a number of children in the community that performed free labor on the building in Brewster through a volunteer “summer work program” in 2019 and 2020.

 Despite securing a “multi-million dollar loan” for the project, Community leaders allegedly had concerns about the high cost of the building’s construction, leading them to resort to unpaid child labor to help bring costs down. Ortolani estimates that the child labor saved the Community “at least half a million dollars in labor costs,” the suit reads.

 “It benefited each Defendant to partake in this scheme because they all had financial interests in building the Center quickly and cheaply,” according to the suit.

 The suit alleges that Ortolani started working on the arts building when he was 11. Children were awoken between 4:30 and 5 a.m. Some days would begin with two and a half hours of exercise, while on other days children were taken directly to the worksite in a forested area in Brewster, according to the suit.

 The worksite was completely fenced in with barbed wire save for a gate that locked behind children at the start of the workday, the suit alleges, and only at the end of the day were children allowed out of the work area.

 Children were onsite between nine and 16 hours a day, six days a week performing a number of tasks including “digging the building’s foundation using shovels, carrying 90-pound bags of concrete, laying rebar and framing the building’s walls,” according to the suit. Breaks were rare, and children were often given as little as 20 minutes for lunch, according to the suit. Children sometimes worked as late as 10 p.m. before being allowed to leave the site, it was alleged.

 “Defendants’ intense work demands meant [Ortolani] rarely received enough sleep for a growing boy,” the suit reads.

 The suit also claims that the worksite was “poorly supervised and staffed, largely by inexperienced adults and children who often were put in harm’s way.” In one instance, it is alleged that a child was injured when he was accidentally struck in the eye with a piece of rebar. Another child was nearly injured by a misfired nail gun, according to the suit. Child workers were also each given just one disposable facemask that they wore each day to protect themselves from concrete dust.

 Robbins called the claims made about the alleged working conditions “absolute garbage.”

 “There’s no evidence of any of that at all,” he said. “If there had been, you’d expect him to complain to his mother or his father. And there’s no evidence of that.”

 Beyond verbal abuse from adults on the worksite, child workers allegedly were also sometimes subjected to physical punishment. The suit alleges that Ortolani was once forced to “run laps in steel-toed boots on a hot July day for four hours” after he was blamed for leaving a hatchet out.

In another instance, Ortolani’s 13-year-old brother was allegedly beaten by another Community member for being “disrespectful.” But the punishment didn’t stop there, the suit alleges.

“He remained in near-total isolation from the Community for six months.” The suit claims that his brother’s punishment dissuaded Ortolani from resisting work on the project.

“Keeping his head down and doing what he was told was the safest course of action,” according to the suit. “Despite his deteriorating physical and mental health, he continued work on the Defendants’ Center.”

 The suit also details Community members’ efforts to frame the labor as educational, and to shield the alleged child labor from government inspectors.

 According to the suit, the defendants put together “fake course descriptions” and would occasionally bring a teacher to the site “in a meager effort to claim that child laborers were getting a good education.”

 It’s also alleged that the Community members would hide children working onsite when government officials would come by to inspect the project.

Robbins said that Ellen Ortolani signed waivers acknowledging that the work being performed by children was voluntary.

“The mother, who was the person who helped directly manage the project, whose name is on every document managing the project, managing the volunteers, signed waivers not only on her behalf but on behalf of her son stipulating that they understood that this was voluntary, that they wanted their son to do it,” he said. Robbins said Ellen Ortolani also signed similar waivers for her two other children who also worked on the project. 

 Copies of waivers signed by Ellen and Oliver Ortolani that were shared by Robbins acknowledge that the labor would be performed voluntarily. They also consent to the use of “power tools, ladders, hydraulic equipment and moving vehicles” that could cause injury. The waivers also put the responsibility of any injury on Ellen Ortolani, and specified that permission from Oliver’s physician was obtained before he became involved in the project.

 But the waivers do not lay out any terms regarding working conditions on the project site, such as how many hours children would work per day.

 “Neither Plaintiff nor his parents knew that this project would take over the children’s lives, nor that the boys would not receive any real schooling,” according to the suit.

The suit claims that Community leaders expanded the summer program into the fall of 2019 and again into 2020. But the program abruptly ended due to leaders’ concerns over the potential "legal liability” of keeping children out of school too long, according to the suit.

The building was finished in October 2021, and the suit alleges that the defendants have since profited from programming hosted at the center. But the impacts to child workers from working on the project have lingered, according to the suit. In one instance, a child who performed labor on the project committed suicide, the suit alleges.

For Ortolani, the effects have been both physical and mental. It is alleged that he’s suffered “joint and back pain,” while he has also since been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, according to the suit. The suit further alleges that Ortolani suffers from other issues including anxiety, stress, panic attacks, distrust of authority, fear and shame.

“Plaintiff also suffered and continues to suffer economic damages, including but not limited to, unpaid wages, at least a two-year delay in his education, and the cost of mental health treatment,” according to the suit.

Ortolani is seeking a jury trial as well as “monetary relief in the form of compensatory and punitive damages and interest,” according to the suit. The suit also seeks the payment of legal fees incurred by Ortolani in bringing the suit, as well as the “disgorgement of profit” that the defendants received through the alleged free labor.

An associate of Ortolani’s attorney, Carol Merchasin, on Monday said that Ortolani has not filed a complaint against the defendants with the state Department of Labor.

As of Tuesday, the defendants had not filed a response to the suit.