The Community of Jesus, a Christian enclave on Cape Cod, is facing a federal lawsuit for allegedly forcing children to work long hours building an event space without compensation.
In July, a 30-page civil complaint was filed in US District Court in Boston on behalf of Oliver Ortolani, an 18-year-old Idaho resident who previously lived in the community and was allegedly subject to the arduous work schedule during construction of the group’s event space in Brewster in 2020.
An attorney for the Orleans religious community has called the lawsuit “classically frivolous” and “borderline fraudulent, at a minimum.”
These are some of the allegations.
A secluded worksite allegedly surrounded by ‘barbed-wire fences’
The complaint said the Brewster job site was located “in the middle of a forest, encircled by barbed-wire fences and a locked gate that the boys could not unlock.”
Their day started early, the lawsuit said.
“The adult Community members who supervised the boys on this commercial job site got them up before 5 a.m., gave them 10 minutes for breakfast, kept them working for nine to sixteen hours a day without proper safety gear, training or breaks, assaulted them or had them shunned by the Community when they showed even mild frustration with the harsh regime, kept them out of school while dressing up their grueling manual labor as educational coursework, and hid them from government inspectors when they came to the worksite,” the complaint said.
The children were “often forced to work into the night, even during Massachusetts’ cold winter months, with illumination provided by large lights brought in by Defendants.”
‘Strict’ obedience to group leadership allegedly required
According to the complaint, leadership of the roughly 200-member group demands “strict obedience” to its instructions.
Those who failed to adhere could allegedly be “banished.”
“Those who deviate can be criticized publicly, fired from their jobs, or banished altogether,” the lawsuit said. “Members are expected to contribute substantial labor whenever asked. Children are separated from the effective control of their parents. The result is a membership conditioned to obey without question.”
Children allegedly ‘shouted at, shamed’
The lawsuit said community members who step out of line can be subject to interventions known as “Light Sessions.”
“Someone who makes a mistake, has been in a bad mood, or is otherwise deviating from expected norms is called out in front of a group of members and questioned about their misbehavior,” the lawsuit said. “The public criticism is intended to shame and humiliate the target to the point where they break down and beg for forgiveness.”
The abuse isn’t always limited to verbal attacks, the lawsuit alleged.
“If the subject resists, the criticisms intensify and sometimes turn physical,” the complaint said. “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.”
Such Light Sessions were a regular occurrence at the Brewster worksite “upon arrival,” the lawsuit said.
“Sometimes an adult would bring up a work mistake the child had made the previous day, other times the child would be asked to confess an ‘impure’ thought,” the lawsuit alleged. “Then he would be shouted at, shamed, and told his ‘spirit was off.’ This lasted until he confessed to something and asked for forgiveness.”
Once the session was over, “the children were told to get to work,” the complaint said.
“Their tasks included digging the building’s foundation using shovels, carrying 90-pound bags of concrete, laying rebar, and framing the building’s walls, among others,” the lawsuit alleged.
‘Comprehensive shunning’
Another type of alleged intervention in the community is known as “Hard Times,” which the complaint describes as “a period of isolation and ostracism.”
“Those subject to this punishment are often removed from all group activities and sometimes even fired from their jobs at Community-run businesses,” the complaint said. “Other members are directed not to speak to them, other than to criticize. This directive often extends to one’s own family members, who are forbidden to interact. The targets of this comprehensive shunning suffer significant mental anguish.”
Among those subjected to the practice was Ortolani’s younger brother, Noah, who one day was accused of disrespecting someone at the job site, the lawsuit said.
“After a Community member told him that he was being disrespectful, Noah responded with ‘I don’t think I was being disrespectful, but I guess I was,’” the filing said. “Noah’s comment enraged the Community member who then took Noah’s hat, threw it on the ground, and started beating him up.”
No adults intervened, the lawsuit alleged.
“After the fight, the other young boys were given special treats like the beverage Propel and were taken swimming, seemingly to persuade them to forget about the incident and not share its details,” the complaint said.
Noah was then allegedly placed on “Hard Times.”
“He remained in near-total isolation from the Community for six months,” the filing said. “Community members were told not to talk to him, and he was unable to participate in school or other normal activities. Instead, he spent his days sitting in his father’s truck while his father worked.”
Suit alleges child separation from parents
The group also has a practice of separating young children from their parents, according to the lawsuit.
“Children in the Community ... are regularly ordered to move out of their parents’ homes to live with other Community members,” the lawsuit said. “These forced separations can begin at the age of four. The Community believes that parents are unable to properly care for and discipline their children because their judgment is clouded by love. It is supposedly better for the children to live with other Community members who are less affectionate.”
Collective punishment on the job site alleged
During construction at the Brewster site, one child’s infraction could have a ripple effect on the entire group of youth laborers, the complaint alleged.
“If a boy was thought to have a bad attitude, made a mistake, or talked back to an adult, all the boys would be punished,” the suit said. “Punishment took many forms, including: being forced to run for hours or do hundreds of push-ups; having to dig through layers of hardened clay for hours; and having to perform high-knees holding their hands above their heads or while pushing heavy wheelbarrows.”
Ortolani once had to run laps in oppressive heat for an adult’s lapse on the site, the lawsuit said.
He had “to run laps in steel-toed boots on a hot July day for [four] hours as punishment because an adult on the worksite had left a hatchet out and one of the boys’ overseers thought that it was their mistake.”
The environment was so damaging to the children’s mental health that one “of the boys committed suicide after the project ended,” the lawsuit alleged.
The complaint said the construction site was a clear hazard, with a “general shoddy approach to safety” resulting in “various accidents and near-misses,” including one instance when an adult misfired a nail gun.
“The released nail ricocheted off one of the nearby chipboards and hit Plaintiff’s teenage brother, Jake, squarely in the forehead of his hardhat,” the complaint said. “Another time, one of the tools used to cut rebar was misused and a piece of it hit a young boy in the eye. He required immediate medical attention.”
The site was also subject to regular government inspections like any commercial construction job, the lawsuit said.
“On such occasions the adults on the site would hide Plaintiff and the other boys away or remove them entirely so that the inspectors would not see a worksite full of children,” the lawsuit said.
Community of Jesus responds
The religious group hasn’t formally responded to the lawsuit in court, and a trial date hasn’t been set.
But Jeffrey S. Robbins, a lawyer for the Community of Jesus, recently released a lengthy statement pushing back against the allegations.
“As Mr. Ortolani and those responsible for filing [the suit] well know, his mother, who was one of the principal managers of this project, signed him up to volunteer on it, and signed acknowledgements, waivers and an indemnification on his behalf — and on behalf of her other two children,” Robbins said. “She actually is the person who prepared those acknowledgements, waivers and indemnifications, and circulated them to the parents of the volunteers to sign. His father, a contractor, was one of the principal foremen on the project. If this plaintiff now claims that he had a bad experience working under his parents’ supervision, that is between him and his parents.”
Robbins said Ortolani “appears to be claiming that his parents ‘trafficked’ him all the way from Orleans to Brewster to work construction. That is obviously worse than absurd. More fundamentally, allegations of ‘trafficking’ on these facts dishonor and effectively abuse the very real victims of trafficking in our society.”
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.