Students at Iowa’s Cono Christian school claim they were smacked with large paddles with word ‘love’ on them, forced to run ‘suicide’ sprints until they vomited and locked in the basement for a WEEK

A Christian school for “troubled” teenagers has compounded their trauma with a brutal regime of beatings, spying and imprisonment, former students claim.

Cono Christian School in rural Iowa is accused of forcing students to commit “suicide acts” until they vomit, locking them in a basement for weeks and assaulting them with a wooden paddle emblazoned with the word “love.”

The school was warned by Iowa’s Department of Human Services in the 1980s but was allowed to continue its capital punishment regime long after it was banned in the state’s public schools.

Now it faces a lawsuit from former students who say the school was ruled by fear.

“I told my parents about the basement, but no one believed me,” Cecelia Angeli, now 32, told the Des Moines Register.

“I spent a lot of time there, but I never did anything that warranted a prison sentence in a school.”

The school, located two miles north of Walker, was founded in the early 1950s as a mission of the Bible Presbyterian Church of Cono Center, largely for the children of missionaries.

But it expanded its intake in the decades that followed, marketing it to parents whose children were disruptive at home.

Angeli, whose stepfather was a pastor, said she was locked in the basement between 15 and 20 times after being registered by her adoptive parents at 14.

“We lived in fear of the consequences,” she said.

‘We were allowed to have a 15-minute conversation once a week, which was monitored. If we said something they didn’t like, they just hung up.

‘My doctor says I have borderline personality disorder and chronic PTSD due to the trauma.

‘I no longer have a relationship with my parents. I felt abandoned when they sent me there. I started drinking heavily and got into trouble after I left.’

Natalee Kooker was enrolled at the age of 13 and claims she was punished after her parents took her away for the weekend without permission.

“When my parents left campus that Monday, they took me to the principal’s office and said, ‘You’re on a performance plan now. You have to run laps every day.

“When I said no, they made me rake gravel in the cold without a coat.”

She had her first experience with the basement after staff chased her in a white minivan as she walked away.

“You would go down these wooden stairs. “There was a concrete floor and a big carpet on the floor, a pillow, a blanket and a bed,” she said.

‘I remember a Bible on the floor. That was it.’

‘I’m not sure they know the damage they’ve done to some people. Many of us left with more problems than we came with.”

Former principal Andrew Belz extolled the school’s virtues when he appeared in a promotional video in 2009.

“I have been told repeatedly that when a guest enters campus, he or she experiences a certain peace, a certain ‘shalom,’” he said.

‘We are not looking for robots, but for children and families with a changed heart.’

But Rachel Davis, 32, of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, said hearts deteriorated under the abuse regime, and she never received the counseling her family was promised.

“I spent more time in the basement than living in my dorm room,” she said.

“Right before I was expelled, I was there for two and a half to three weeks.”

The school washed its hands of her, she claims, and recommended a tough-love residential program in the Dominican Republic, where she spent four years.

“My entire childhood was taken from me,” she said.

Belz told the Register that the school emphasized structure and relationships, not punishment.

“But everyone had consequences, and we need them in life,” he added.

And he insisted the basement was rarely locked.

“You had your books, you could sneak out if you wanted, all the food was delivered straight to you, you were never starved or given special rations,” he added.

‘It would be foolish to say that every disciplinary situation was handled perfectly.

“But the big picture was that the staffers loved the kids and wanted to help kids grow up and look great. And a lot of them did.”

Des Moines attorney Angela Campbell said she had been contacted by former students and expected more to come forward.

“I am deeply concerned about the conduct attributed to the former operators and employees of Cono Christian School,” she added.

“This level of cruelty in a school environment is unconscionable.

“I am hopeful that shedding light on this misconduct, and calling it out for what it is – child abuse – will give the children who suffered trauma during Cono, the feeling that their voices can and will be heard.”

The school was taken over by new owners in 2018 and Belz admits standards have changed.

“If I were building a school right now, I wouldn’t put detention rooms in the basement,” he said.

“It sounds unusual in our time.”