A second African immigrant accused of holding a woman against her will at a St. Louis church was granted bond today, over the objections of city prosecutors. If Grace Kipendo posts $3,000 and complies with other conditions, he will be free until his felony kidnapping case goes to trial.
Kipendo was taken into custody in February after a woman fled the Mount of Olives Ministry in south city, saying she had been held captive in a room there and showing rope marks around her arms and ankles. After police arrived, the victim took officers back into the church and showed them where she said she'd been held.
The weeks since have seen considerable debate about whether or not the predominantly Swahili-speaking congregation at Mount of Olives is tantamount to a cult. The city condemned the church for occupancy but reversed that decision a week later.
At Kipendo’s hearing today, prosecutor Chris Faerber argued in front of Judge Annette Llewellyn that the 28-year-old Kipendo ought to be kept in jail for the safety of the victim.
Faerber said that a church member can be heard on police body cam footage saying of the victim, "She ran away."
That same footage shows Kipendo hovering nearby the victim and staring directly at her as she showed police where she’d been held, Faerber said. He added that this is classic abuser behavior and that Kipendo wasn't, as his defense attorney has previously argued, acting as an interpreter between the victim and police.
“Kipendo is following her not for translation purposes,” Faerber said. “She is speaking accented but almost perfect English."
“He tried to control her,” Faerber added. Officers eventually asked Kipendo to distance himself from the victim.
Faerber said that the victim can be heard on the body cam referring to Kipendo, an army reservist, as a "soldier for the church."
Faerber also referenced another aspect of the body cam footage in the hearing, this from when police searched the room where the alleged victim was allegedly held. The probable cause statement filed along with the original charges said that the room contained a bucket being used as a makeshift toilet. Days later, when the media were allowed to view the room, it looked relatively tidy, if a bit unusual. But according to Faerber, the body cam footage showed trash piled high in the room as well as the makeshift toilet. The church had cleaned it up for the visit by city inspectors and the media.
"I don't know if they realized how body-worn camera footage works," Faerber said.
However, Kipendo's attorney Chris Combs tells the RFT that there is ample evidence on that same body cam footage showing that his client was wrongfully arrested.
"The whole case is her identification," Combs says, meaning that the only reason Kipendo was among the three police arrested was because the victim identified a man in a "gray jacket," a vague description given that dozens of people were in and out of the church in the days the woman says she was held there. On the body cam the victim can also be heard saying that the man in the gray jacket didn't tie her up.
"I don't think the victim even knows my guy's name," Combs says.
Combs also says that several times on the body cam, police can be heard expressing concerns that they entered the church without a search warrant.
About Kipendo's inserting himself into the conversation between the victim and police, Combs says Kipendo was one of the few people on the scene fluent in both English and Swahili and he felt a duty to act as interpreter.
Faerber argued that because Kipendo is a leader within the church community, there was no way to prevent him from contacting the victim via third parties.
Both sides seem to agree the victim in the case was having some sort of mental health crisis. Today in court, Faerber said that the church withheld her medication, instead giving her an “orange herbal supplement.”
"I would charge the whole church if I could," Faerber said.
After a lengthy back-and-forth between Faerber and Combs, Llewellyn ultimately allowed Kipendo to be released from the City Justice Center under significant conditions. Kipendo must post $3,000, and he will be on house arrest and GPS monitoring. He is also forbidden from speaking with any other church members.
Kipendo's co-defendant, Pasi Heri, was allowed out of jail on bond in March. The third man arrested, Mmunga Fungamali, is still in the City Justice Center.
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