A HINDU guru who runs an ashram in Texas has gone on the run after a jury sentenced him to 14 years in prison for molesting two teenage girls in the 1990s.
Prakashanand Saraswati, 82, known to his devotees as Shree Swamiji, founded and ran the 200-acre Barsana Dham ashram in Driftwood, Texas.
Last week a Hays County jury found the guru guilty of indecency with a child by sexual contact. He was found guilty of repeatedly groping two girls whose families lived at the ashram southwest of Austin. He did not appear in court for the punishment phase of his trial.
Saraswati has been sentenced to 14 years in prison and fined $10,000 for each of 20 counts of molesting the girls.
He has been missing since Sunday evening (March 6) and police said they have no new leads. Saraswati is thought to be traveling with his longtime assistant and caregiver, Vishwambhari Devi.
A warrant has been issued for his arrest.
The two women, now aged 27 and 30, brought charges against the guru three years ago.
Earlier, prosecutors asked the jury to sentence Saraswati to 20 years in prison, or 400 years in total, for ‘each and every’ one of the 20 criminal counts on which the guru was convicted.
‘This defendant is not a good candidate for probation because he can’t even make it to the rest of the trial,’ said Hays County assistant district attorney Kathy Compton.
Saraswati’s defence attorneys told the court that their elderly client’s various ailments, including coronary disease, hypertension and back pain, make him too infirm to be in prison.
‘To put him in a penitentiary setting at his age with these type of physical disabilities would be a death sentence for swamiji,’ said Jeff Kearney, his lead attorney.
District Judge Charles Ramsay will decide later whether Saraswati’s prison sentences are to be served concurrently.
Peter Spiegel, a wealthy devotee who posted a $1m cash bond that was forfeited when Saraswati failed to appear in court, testified that he did not know where the guru was.
Spokesmen for the ashram he founded in Driftwood added that they did not know where he was.
