Ann Rodriquez was looking for a boarding school for her daughter — and in August 2018, she asked Jeffrey Epstein for help.In an email dated Aug. 7, 2018, Rodriquez — described in the Epstein files as his “island manager” — sent her boss a list of five schools and asked him to weigh in on placing her teenage daughter.Wedged between options in Orlando and San Diego was one name far from either coast: Wings of Faith Academy, a private Christian boarding school for “troubled girls” in southwest Missouri.Epstein replied with a quick directive: “check them out, with comments etc. lakeland. orlando missour . first ?”Rodriquez ultimately chose Piney Woods School for Girls in Mississippi, but Wings of Faith’s appearance in Epstein’s correspondence draws new attention to a Missouri network of faith-based residential boarding schools which have faced years of abuse allegations and prompted lawmakers to adopt limited oversight reforms.Wings of Faith has been accused by former students of physical and psychological abuse. It also operated alongside Agape Ranch, the now-shuttered boys’ program whose treatment of students drew statewide scrutiny, and it was part of a broader pipeline of private boarding schools that has repeatedly drawn complaints, eluded oversight and prompted piecemeal reforms. “The troubled teen industry is a hotbed of abuse,” Ryan Fraizer, a Kansas City attorney who specializing in personal injury and sexual abuse cases, told The Independent.. “I’m not surprised to see a Missouri boarding school in this context.”Over the last five years, Fraizer’s law firm, Monsees & Mayer, has litigated upward of 70 cases against Agape Ranch. Former students at Wings of Faith are calling for litigation.“Unfortunately,” said Fraizer, because of a lack of oversight or legal protections, “our state is a target for these facilities.”The founders of Wings of Faith Academy, which closed in 2022 for “health reasons,” could not be reached for comment.Allegations of abuseOne former student at Wings of Faith was Jordan Evans, who was 15 years old in 2016 when she was taken from her room in Wildwood by a man she didn’t know.“The transporter took me out of bed early in the morning,” Evans said in a recent interview with The Independent. “He carried a little paper that claimed he had legal guardianship, and said that my mom was following in another car behind ours. I thought I was dreaming so I didn’t ask so many questions.”Without her knowledge, Evans’ mother had enrolled her in Wings of Faith Academy. Evans’ peers and teachers did not know where she had been taken, and her father, who was living in Ukraine, did not find out about Wings of Faith for months.Wings of Faith was a militaristic Christian institution, Evans said, with staff patrolling up and down the aisles between beds at night.“There was a color system,” Evans said. “So if you were cheating you had to wear a green shirt, and didn’t get as much food or water as everyone else, and you had to memorize more scripture.”Yellow meant more severe rationing and punishment. Grey was worse.“I was put on grey when I first got there because I tried to run away,” Evans said.During the attempted escape, Evans says she ended up with nowhere to go, in a field near Agape Ranch, having injured herself on barbed wire.“I sliced my leg and my hands open pretty good,” she said. “When I got back to the school they made me strip down and hosed me off. They made me pour alcohol all over.”As punishment for the escape attempt, Evans says she was made to face the wall all day, and could only fill her small water bottle once in the morning.“They put me on flip flop status so that it was harder to run away,” she said. “You know when you injure your foot and they put that boot on you? I had to wear one of those.”Wings of Faith Academy was operated by Percy “Bud” Martin II and Debbie Martin. The Kansas City Star reported the Martins started in Tennessee and relocated to at least two other states in order to establish their school in Stockton in 2004, which went through multiple name changes.Neither responded to a request for comment.Colton Schrag, who spent years at Agape Boarding School in southwest Missouri, where dozens of former students have described experiencing abuse, testifies during a committee hearing on Feb. 10, 2021 (Tim Bommel/House Communications).Former students like Evans and those who have testified at legislative hearings over the years have alleged that in addition to enduring abuse, they were also denied medical care.“They would just give us essential oils,” Evans said. “They thought that would cure everything even if we were all throwing up because we all had a stomach virus.”Evans’ cohort ranged from 8 to 18 years-old, with many girls coming from foster care.“We weren’t allowed to talk about our past lives, we weren’t allowed to sing songs or touch each other or braid each other’s hair,” she said.