UPDATE: Aswad Ayinde Was Sentenced To 40 Years In Prison regarding the 2010 conviction & faces another 50-year max sentence w/regard to Friday’s findings.He faces more than 100 years if convicted.

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A New Jersey religious fanatic obsessed with creating a "pure" bloodline repeatedly raped his five daughters - and three of them gave birth to six children, prosecutors revealed Thursday.

Aswad Ayinde, also known as Charles McGill, somehow managed to keep one step ahead of child welfare investigators by moving from town to town - and beat his kids with wooden boards or kicked them with steel-toed boots to keep them in line, investigators said.

Many of the rapes took place in an abandoned funeral home in East Orange, N.J., where the family squatted for a time, investigators said.

"He said the world was going to end, and it was just going to be him and his offspring and that he was chosen,"  Ayinde's ex-wife, Beverly, testified at a recent hearing.

The woman said she was too afraid to counter her husband - even after she learned he was raping their daughters.

"I was afraid to ever accuse him of being demented or being a pedophile," she said. "I knew the word, but I wouldn't dare use it because it would result in a beating."

Beverly Ayinde said she felt ashamed for not rescuing her girls.

"I'm sure my not standing up to him didn't help the kids," she said. "They felt disempowered also. There was just a lot of fear. Everybody was threatened."

Some of the babies were delivered at home, and they buried the two that died, she told the court. The others never got birth certificates.

Her 51-year-old former husband faces the first of five separate trials next month - one for each daughter he allegedly violated, said Lisa Squitieri, the Passaic County prosecutor handling the case.

Ayinde, who is from Atlantic City but lived most recently in Paterson, N.J., was arrested in 2006 and was being held on $1 million bond.

He was ruled competent to stand trial earlier this year and faces 27 charges including aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, aggravated criminal sexual contact and criminal sexual contact.

His arrest has prompted an internal probe by the New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services to determine how the suspect allegedly turned his daughters into sexual slaves without them knowing a thing.

Some of the crimes allegedly occurred while the family was under scrutiny by the state child welfare agency - and after the dad had been arrested and pleaded guilty to assault and child endangerment.

The violated daughters are now all 18 and older. Their whereabouts - and those of their children - were not known.

Prosecutors said the accused dad began raping his daughters in the mid-1980s until 2002, when his wife fled the household.

During that period, Ayinde and his trapped family lived in the New Jersey cities of Paterson, Orange, Eatontown and East Orange. He kept close tabs on his daughters and home schooled them to keep the filthy family secrets from spilling out, investigators said.

At one point, Ayinde moved the family to Florida to avoid investigators.
He faces a hearing Friday where a judge is expected to rule on the admissibility of his wife's testimony.

JMO..he selected the right name for himself, oh, sorry, I thought I saw 2 s.

A “depraved” man said to believe that only he and his offspring would survive the end of the world is to go on trial charged with fathering six children with his own daughters.

Aswad Ayinde, 51, who describes himself as a film-maker and soft-drink entrepreneur, is accused of raping five of his daughters and making three of them pregnant.

Authorities describe Mr Ayinde, also known as Eric McGill, as a “blueblood” engaged in a perverse attempt to keep his bloodline pure.

“He said the world was going to end, and it was just going to be him and his offspring and that he was chosen,” his ex-wife, Beverly, testified at a recent hearing.

Joseph Del Russo, a prosecutor, said: “The witnesses’ statements describe a depraved parent with a Messianic complex.” Some of the children produced through the incestuous unions suffer health problems.

Mr Ayinde eluded child welfare investigators by moving from town to town in New Jersey and Florida from 1985 to 2002. He allegedly beat his children with boards and kicked them with steel-capped boots to stop them speaking about the rapes.

Many of the alleged rapes took place when the family was living in an abandoned funeral home in Paterson, New Jersey. Mr Ayinde reportedly renovated a room for himself but forced the rest of his family to live in the dilapidated portion of the building.

Some of the babies were delivered at home. Two died, while those that survived never obtained birth certificates and were home-schooled.

Beverly Ayinde, who had nine children with her husband, said: “He was having regular relationships with all the girls. I wasn’t fighting back. I was afraid to fight back. I was afraid to ever accuse him of being demented or being a paedophile. I knew the word, but I wouldn’t dare use it because it would result in a beating.”

Mr Ayinde was arrested in 2006 and has been held on a $1 million (£660,000) bond after arriving for a hearing with a woman and child despite a ban on contact with children.

Starting next month, he faces separate trials for the alleged rape of each of his five daughters.

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Ayinde (also known as Eric McGill), 50, of Atlantic City, will be tried in five separate cases for his alleged crimes against each individual victim.

The first trial is expected to be scheduled this spring, when he faces counts of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, aggravated criminal sexual contact and criminal sexual contact. Reddin will decide on March 12 as to what portions of Beverly Ayinde’s testimony is admissible in the first case.

The defendant’s wife is not named as a victim in the myriad sexual assault charges against him, which apply only to alleged acts against his five daughters. But she said they were all subject to brutal beatings, often deprived food and threatened with death.

During another period in their relationship, she said, she miscarried twins after her husband made her carry the corpse of the family’s great dane to its grave in a rolled-up carpet.

The family was always on the move, living mostly in Paterson, Eatontown, East Orange, Orange and Brooklyn, she said. By 2002, they separated after a family acquaintance who discovered what was happening offered Beverly Ayinde a place to stay.

“During this time, [the defendant] was running from the police, so things were sort of scattered,” she said. “DYFS was looking for him, the police were looking for him.”

She later added: “He was no longer living under the same roof as us. I also got a restraining order. I just attempted to live life without him.”

Beverly Ayinde had a total of nine children with the defendant during their marriage, which began in 1977 and ended in divorce last October. She noted that they had been separated since 2002.

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The violated daughters are now all 18 and older. Their whereabouts - and those of their children - were not known.

Prosecutors said the accused dad began raping his daughters in the mid-1980s until 2002, when his wife fled the household.

He kept close tabs on his daughters and home schooled them to keep the filthy family secrets from spilling out, investigators said.

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Some of the crimes allegedly occurred while the family was under scrutiny by the state child welfare agency - and after the dad had been arrested and pleaded guilty to assault and child endangerment.
What is it going to take to get the damned DCF or CPS or whatever it's called in various states to TAKE ACTION? Under Scrutiny?? You've got to be kidding me! Those kids should have been taken away a long time ago. And, the mother..I realize she was probably near demented due to the abuse, but WHY didn't she go to the police when she finally left his sorry asswad??

The mother is guilty, too! Had she never heard of a battered woman's shelter. He would have had to kill me first before he raped one of MY daughters. There is no excuse for her turning her head while this was going on.

I agree, BJ..completely. I was just reacting to the fact that she left and just went on her merry way..too "afraid to get help". I understand severe abuse but in this day and age, you are correct. There are shelters in most cities. No excuse.

He would have had to kill me to get to my Daughters. I can't believe the number of these stories where the State child welfare offices could have done something to prevent this.

A MAN fathered six children with his own daughters to create a "pure" bloodline that would survive doomsday, a court has heard.

New Jersey prosecutors said the man – identified as Aswad Ayinde, who won an MTV award for directing the Fugees' Killing Me Softly music video – fathered the children with his daughters from the mid-1980s until 2002.

Ayinde, 51, also had at least 12 other children with different women.

New Jersey Superior Court Judge Raymond Reddin ruled on Friday that testimony describing the abuse and isolation of the family would not be withheld from jurors, including allegations the man ordered all children be born at home to remain undocumented, depriving them of food and medical care, keeping them out of school and threatening them with death if they told anyone.

He faces the first of five trials next month – one for each daughter he allegedly abused, said prosecutor Lisa Squitieri. He faces 27 charges including aggravated sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, aggravated criminal sexual contact and criminal sexual contact.

Joseph Del Russo, a prosecutor, said: "The witnesses' statements describe a depraved parent with a Messianic complex."

Daryl Pennington, a lawyer for the defendant, said his client remained on $US1 million ($1.09 million) bail.

A young woman who claimed to be a daughter of the man told the New York Daily News: "It's a painful thing. It's not something we're going to talk about outside of our family. The truth is coming out now, after a long time. That's it."

The case echoes that of Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl, who secretly kept his daughter captive in his cellar for 24 years, fathering seven children.

Mr Ayinde allegedly beat his children with boards and kicked them with steel-capped boots to stop them speaking about the rapes.

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The wife of a man charged with raping and purposely impregnating one of his young daughters testified at his trial Tuesday that what began as play fighting with her husband when she was a teen-age bride soon evolved into full-fledged verbal and physical abuse.

Beverly Ayinde, who took the stand as the first witness for the prosecution, said she and Aswad Ayinde, 52, now of Atlantic City, met at Eastside High School in Paterson. By the time she was 18, they were married and she was having his children.

“We would walk down the street and he would punch me in the arm,” she said of the first signs of trouble. Years later, when she was five-months pregnant, she testified, “He swung me around and threw me to the floor.” In another instance, she testified, Ayinde told her: “No man’s going to want a woman with two kids.”

“How did that make you feel?” asked Passaic County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Squitieri.

“Worthless, I guess,” she responded. She later added: “I didn’t tell anybody.”

“Why,” Squitieri asked.

“Pride, maybe. I was embarrassed.”

Ms. Ayinde said that eventually, all the children were subject to beatings if they did not behave. She said she kept quiet, for fear of what he would do to her if she exposed him. “He said that he answered to God, and I answered to him. He wanted me to call him ‘God,’Ÿ” she testified. While he identified with no one particular religion, she said, “I do remember him equating himself to Christ.”

When Ayinde was arrested in July 2006, prosecutors described him as someone who believes in keeping his bloodlines pure, a “blueblood.” In all, five of Ayinde’s daughters were allegedly raped. The self-described filmmaker, soft drink entrepreneur and landlord allegedly committed the assaults from 1985 through 2002 in Paterson, East Orange, Orange and Eatontown.

“It’s sad on so many levels,” Squitieri told jurors in her opening statement Tuesday. “It’s a case where a child was betrayed by her father and not protected by her mother.”

Defense Attorney Daryl Pennington of Newark simply told jurors during his opening statement that his client remains innocent until proven guilty. “He can sit here and never say a word, never open his mouth. He remains innocent,” said Pennington, who offered little else in the way of a defense argument. “We are going to adhere to the U.S. Constitution,” Pennington said.

He reminded jurors that just because the state alleges something doesn’t make it so. “What you see may not be all of the story.”

Four of the alleged victims were daughters with his wife. Three of those four daughters bore six children by their natural father. Ayinde, who also is known as Eric McGill, will be tried in five separate cases for his alleged crimes against each individual victim. This is the first of those trials before state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin in Paterson.

The prosecution says jurors will hear of how Ayinde kept his wife and daughters away from doctors, home schooled them and cut them off from the outside world to keep the family secret.

When the victim in this case was born, Squitieri said, Ayinde’s control over the household had peaked. The girl was given no Social Security number and no birth certificate. It was as if she had no identity in the eyes of the government – or in the eyes of the defendant, said Squitieri. Ayinde abused the child sexually from age 8 to 13, she said. Once she turned 13, Squitieri added, he began having intercourse with her until she became pregnant and gave birth.

The victim, now 23, is expected to testify. “She has only shown strength and courage,” Squitieri said, adding that it was she who finally went to Paterson police and revealed what she and her family had endured, leading to Ayinde’s arrest. The young woman has kept her child, Squitieri added.

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A State Police forensics expert testified in state court Thursday that based on DNA profiles, Aswad Ayinde is the father of his own grandchild, conceived by Ayinde and his 14-year-old daughter and born in 2001.

Ayinde is on trial on charges he raped and deliberated impregnated his young daughter in an attempt to keep his bloodlines pure.

Lynn Crutchley, a forensic scientist with the New Jersey State Police Laboratory, told jurors and state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin in Paterson that the child’s DNA “is consistent with being an offspring” of the defendant and his now-23-year-old daughter.

Crutchley added that she is not a qualified expert on calculating the “paternity probability,” or giving what the statistical chances are that the baby is actually the 52-year-old Ayinde’s, based on the DNA profile. She said, however, that it was her professional opinion that Ayinde and his daughter were the parents, based on her analysis of the DNA evidence.

The prosecution is expected to present a probability witness next week, to give the DNA results more context for the jury. While the scientific evidence thus does not unequivocally establish Ayinde as the father, neither does it rule him out.

When Ayinde was arrested in July 2006, prosecutors described him as a “blueblood,” or someone who believes in keeping his bloodlines pure. In all, five of Ayinde’s daughters were allegedly raped. The self-described filmmaker, soft drink entrepreneur and landlord allegedly committed the assaults during 1985 through 2002 in Paterson, East Orange, Orange and Eatontown.

The alleged victim is expected to testify sometime next week.

Four of the alleged victims were daughters with his wife, Beverly. Three of those four daughters bore six children by their natural father. Ayinde, also known as Eric McGill, will be tried in five separate cases for his alleged crimes against each individual victim. This is the first of those trials.

Ayinde, formerly of Paterson and now of Atlantic City, is charged with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, aggravated criminal sexual contact and criminal sexual contact. He faced 40 years if convicted in this trial and more than 100 years if convicted of all the charges he faces in subsequent trials.

The daughter who he allegedly raped and impregnated is expected to take the witness stand next week. Her mother, Ayinde’s wife, has already testified to brutal beatings, punishing diets and a cloistered existence away from doctors, schools and friends as part of Ayinde’s alleged mental and physical abuse of the family.

Beverly Ayinde said that Ayinde likened himself to Jesus Christ and forbade some of the children from getting vaccinations because he believed immunizations were designed to kill black babies.

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Defense Attorney Daryl Pennington of Newark simply told jurors during his opening statement that his client remains innocent until proven guilty. “He can sit here and never say a word, never open his mouth. He remains innocent,” said Pennington, who offered little else in the way of a defense argument. “We are going to adhere to the U.S. Constitution,” Pennington said.

He reminded jurors that just because the state alleges something doesn’t make it so. “What you see may not be all of the story.”

B.S!!! What I see is DNA showing he fathered six children with his own children and a grandchild with one of his own children. How utterly and completely sickening. One has to wonder what the mental & physical prognosis is of these 7 offspring. This guy is crazy, but not in the sense that he is suitable for the insanity defense. He is a Master abuser and control freak (goes hand in hand) and what I cannot understand is why they all didn't get together and set him on fire or poison him or something.

This is what DV does to the psyche. These men make you BELIEVE you are worthless, you are Nothing without them. I DO agree the mother should have gotten the hell out of there when he first started this, but maybe she was afraid..maybe he had her so transfixed she thought he would hunt her down and find her no matter where she went. Maybe he kept her so isolated, she had no clue where to turn.

And, maybe I missed this, but he owns a soda company? What's the name of it? It's one soda (I barely drink them anyway) I would NEVER buy.

And how was he finally found out?

Does he not realize he may have fathered severely mentally challenged children? Does he care? I truly believe there are some men that think that "sperm donating" as many children as they can makes them feel like "a man." :jaw dropping:

Laga said:

JMO..he selected the right name for himself, oh, sorry, I thought I saw 2 s.

The story seems like America's answer to the infamous Josef Fritzl case, in which an Austrian man imprisoned his daughter and fathered six children by her. America's answer to the Fritzl story is even more bizarre. Aswad Ayinde, 51, is accused of raping five of his daughters repeatedly over a five year period and impregnating three of them. A total of six children survived this series of crimes, which spanned a period of about 20 years and ended in 2002. The judge in the case has recently ruled that his ex wife can testify against her ex husband, despite laws restricting spousal testimony.

Isolation and brutality made the crimes possible. Ayinde rationalized his actions by saying that he and his family had been chosen to survive an apocalypse and that he was creating a "pure bloodline" from which the world would be populated. He is being held on 1 million dollars bail.

In a bizarre twist to the case, it turns out that Asawad Ayinde had a prior reputation not as a violent pervert but as a producer of music videos. His video "Killing Me Softly" by the Fugees, was featured on MTV, as reported on the Huffington Post blog.

There are plenty of questions for child welfare authorities in New Jersey, where the crimes took place. The Daily News reports as follows.

"His arrest prompted a probe by the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services to determine how the suspect allegedly turned his daughters into sex slaves without their knowing.

Some of the crimes allegedly occurred while the family was under scrutiny by the agency - and after the dad admitted to a 2000 attempt to snatch his children from a hospital while the state had temporary custody.

Prosecutors said Ayinde kept the kids from blabbing by beating them with wooden boards or kicking them with steel-toed boots.

"I was afraid to ever accuse him of being demented or being a pedophile," Beverly Ayinde, who married him in 1977, told the court. "I knew the word, but I wouldn't dare use it because it would result in a beating."

For the sake of future investigations, it needs to be asked what could be done to prevent future lost opportunities.What warning signs were there? And how could New Jersey child welfare authorities have broken the spell of intimidation that kept the mother of the abused children and the children themselves silent. Did the celebrity status of Aswad Ayinde play a role in more lenient treatment by state authorities?

How do you reach children who are in such a sealed environment? A child who goes to school with other children can compare experiences and realize that something is amiss in his or her home life. But what of a child who is in an isolated environment. Perhaps the key is the mother in this case, whose identity, like that of her children is being withheld from the public due to the nature of the crimes. Unlike her children, Aswad Ayinde's ex wife knew of life in homes other than the one in which she spent her married life. How do you reach such a person. We have 1 800 COP SHOT in New York City. Maybe there could be a national rescue number with a toll free exchange and a number that spells out NO ABUSE.

How long after the divorce did the abuse continue? What could the wife have done after presumably she was out from under Ayinde's spell. When did she divorce him? How did she escape?

It is very difficult to use the term "alleged" in this criminal case. Six children are living and breathing testimony that terrible crimes were committed. Their DNA will say whatever they can not. Aswad Ayinde will likely spend the rest of his life around people who will not be as easy to intimidate as his family.

Forensic psychologists are going to have a multitude of questions about how abused women and children can be empowered to walk out of such situations as existed in the prison that Ayinde called a home. Perhaps the public discussion might bring other yet undiscovered cases to light.

The Ayinde family will need years of counseling to overcome the daily horror of their lives in their home. Perhaps in helping themselves, they might uncover emotional truths that could help others break free of domestic imprisonment. And perhaps the knowledge that they have helped others might provide them with healing and consolation.

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Tuesday, September 14, 2010
LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 15, 2010, 2:40 PM
BY JOHN PETRICK
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITER

Jury selection began in Paterson on Tuesday in the trial of a self-declared prophet on charges he raped and purposely impregnated one of his teen-age daughters.

Awad Ayinde, seen in a March court hearing, faces two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of sexual assault, one count of child endangerment, one count of lewdness, one count of criminal sexual contact and one count of aggravated criminal sexual contact.

When Aswad Ayinde was arrested in July 2006, prosecutors described him as a “blueblood,” or someone who believes in keeping his bloodlines pure. In all, five of Ayinde’s daughters were allegedly raped. The self-described filmmaker, soft drink entrepreneur and landlord allegedly committed the assaults from 1985 through 2002 in Paterson, East Orange, Orange and Eatontown.

Four of the alleged victims were daughters with his wife Beverly. Three of those four daughters bore six children by their natural father.

Ayinde, who also is known as Eric McGill, 50, will be tried in five separate cases for his alleged crimes against each individual victim. This is the first of those trials before state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin.

The cases are being tried separately so that jurors only learn of the alleged assault against the victim at-hand and not the others. State law prevents other so-called “bad acts” from unfairly prejudicing jurors, with some exceptions.

The state, during pre-trial hearings, asked Reddin to at the very least allow Ayinde’s wife and a daughter to testify at the first trial about alleged brutal beatings and death threats Ayinde made to the entire family. The state also wanted testimony permitted about how Ayinde kept his wife and daughters away from doctors, home schooled them and cut them off from the outside world to keep the family secret from surfacing.

Reddin agreed that such testimony is allowed in the first trial, to establish the state’s premise that the victim was mentally and physically beaten into submission.

The judge, however, stopped short of allowing the state to introduce as part of its case any testimony about the other alleged rapes within the family unless the defense, for some reason, “opens the door to its admissibility” during trial.

Beverly Ayinde testified at a pre-trial hearing before Reddin earlier this year that Ayinde had sex with his daughters because, he declared, the world was ending and his offspring would be the sole survivors. She said he often beat them all and threatened to kill them if they revealed what was happening.

The defendant’s wife is not named as a victim in the myriad sexual assault charges against him, which apply only to alleged acts against his five daughters. But she said they were all subject to brutal beatings, often deprived of food and threatened with death.

The prosecution has said it has DNA evidence to support the charge that he fathered his grandchildren. The defense has thus far declined to indicate publicly what its case will be.

In this trial, Ayinde faces two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of sexual assault, one count of child endangerment, one count of lewdness, one count of criminal sexual contact and one count of aggravated criminal sexual contact. If convicted in this case, he faces a maximum of 40 years in prison. If convicted of all counts in all the cases, Ayinde faces more than 100 years in prison.

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totally speechless!

A former Paterson man charged with deliberately impregnating his 14-year-old daughter to create his own “blueblood” race testified Thursday that his future wife and mother of his children was charmed by his values. “I had very high morals,” he said.
Aswad Ayinde, 52, took the stand in his own defense before a jury in state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin’s courtroom in Paterson. “Intelligent people have high morals. She liked that,” he said of his future wife, Beverly, whom he met at Eastside High School. “We connected because I didn’t believe in drugs or drinking, but a very holistic lifestyle.”

A Boy Scout who got enough merit badges to earn Eagle Scout and later Explorer, Ayinde told jurors he was “half nerd, half athlete” in high school. That dichotomy of bookworm and jock, he said, appealed to Beverly, who would go on to what the prosecution alleges was a life of savage beatings and rapes of herself and her young daughters at the hands of her husband. Beverly Ayinde testified against him earlier in the trial.

What’s next
The trial will resume Tuesday with continued testimony from Aswad Ayinde.

When he was arrested in July 2006, prosecutors described the defendant as a “blueblood,” or someone who believes in keeping his bloodlines pure. In all, five of Ayinde’s daughters were allegedly raped. The self-described filmmaker, soft drink entrepreneur and landlord allegedly committed the assaults from 1985 through 2002 in Paterson, East Orange, Orange and Eatontown.

Four of the alleged victims were daughters with his wife, Beverly. Three of those four daughters bore six children by their natural father. Ayinde, who also is known as Eric McGill, will be tried in five separate cases for his alleged crimes against each individual victim. This is the first of those trials.

He is charged with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, aggravated criminal sexual contact and criminal sexual contact. He faced 40 years if convicted in this trial and more than 100 years if convicted of all the charges he faces in subsequent trials.

Ayinde, now of Atlantic City, flatly denied Beverly Ayinde’s assertion on the witness stand that when they met, he claimed he was sterile and so they needed no birth control. He also denied her claims that the physical abuse in their relationship began when he would play-fight with her, punching her repeatedly in the arm until she cried.

“That’s a lie,” he said of both claims. As far as their budding relationship went, “Even in school, we were considered the ideal couple together.” Beverly Ayinde’s eventual pregnancies were mutually agreed upon, he added. “We didn’t consider birth control. If it happened, we were happy,” he said. “We were very harmonious.”

He said Beverly’s parents were “prejudiced” against him because they were Jamaican and he was not, but that he did his best to stay in their good graces. He studied at New Jersey Institute of Technology to be an engineer, he said, when Beverly had their first child.

“We spent sunup to sundown together,” he said. “We were best friends.”

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Aswad Ayinde denied from the witness stand Wednesday the charge that he beat and raped his biological 14-year-old daughter into believing he was Christ until she bore his child, all in the name of creating his own race.

“I’ve never even seen a movie like that,” said 52-year-old Ayinde, also known as Eric McGill, defending himself before jurors and state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin in Paterson. “It’s just lies.”

What’s more, he testified, the allegations are the product of the manipulation of his wife and children by another man who was himself a self-proclaimed spiritual leader and who eventually stole Ayinde’s family.

Ayinde detailed an elaborate scheme he said was perpetrated against him by a man he identified as Jean Pierre Baptiste, a priest initiate in Brooklyn with the African Ifa faith that Ayinde and his family also practiced. The man became Ayinde’s business partner and his family’s spiritual adviser and, according to Ayinde, ultimately destroyed his business and turned his family on him.

Ayinde characterized himself as being a “famous director” of hip-hop videos in 2001, when he met the spiritual adviser, and that he was diversifying into the soft drink business. He said he had a $300 million deal with Pepsi Cola to develop a new hip-hop-oriented soft drink with the company, and that he even directed a commercial for it.

The family’s spiritual adviser, who had his own temple in Brooklyn, convinced Ayinde to make him a 50/50 business a partner in the Pepsi deal, Ayinde testified, admitting he agreed without even knowing all that much about the man. In the end, the adviser turned on him, he said.

The deal ultimately soured, the spiritual adviser began having a relationship with Ayinde’s wife Beverly, essentially became father to his children, and also planted lies about him in the community, Ayinde said. One such lie, Ayinde testified, was that he had murdered members of his family.

Ayinde said he suspected that this, too, is the reason his wife and child have made up stories about him, such as his declaring himself a prophet to his family and isolating them from the world.

He said he hasn’t seen his wife and children in nine years, except for one chance encounter with wife Beverly on the street in which she ended up running away from him. He filed for divorce about five years later, but he said Beverly would not accept the papers. Two years later, Beverly served him with a summons seeking formal custody of the children. He said he did not contest it.

“I just moved forward with my life,” he said.

As for alleged beatings with belts and slabs of wood, he noted that in the late 1970s and early 1980s his family lived in Paterson with his in-laws, who frequently babysat and often interfered in their lives. He questioned how the in-laws -- no less the police -- couldn’t have known of such things if they were really happening.

“Who would take a young child and beat them?” he said. “What is it that would make me hate my kids so much?”

Wife Beverly’s characterization from the witness stand earlier in the trial of Ayinde taking control of the family’s life by dictating an all-rice diet at times, denying them access to doctors and isolating them from the world was distorted and exaggerated, he said. “I’m working all day. How could I control the food?” he said. His wife Beverly, meanwhile, was home all day, all the time. “She didn’t work for the next 20 years. So how did I control everything that went on in the house?” he said.

While he did home-birth his children, he said it was in full conformance with Board of Health rules and supervision. The family did live a holistic, organic lifestyle right down to all-silk clothing - no synthetics - that he said was for their benefit, not a tool of deprivation. “We didn’t go on a regular basis to doctors because there was no reason to go to a doctor,” he said in responding to his wife’s testimony that the family was denied access to medical care.

His children -- who wife Beverly said also were denied access to vaccinations by her husband -- never had the measles, mumps, or even the flu growing up, he said.

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A former Paterson man on trial for allegedly trying to create his own "blue blood" race by impregnating his biological 14-year-old daughter was confronted by a prosecutor on cross-examination Thursday with high school and college transcripts that appear to contradict his claims of excelling in the classroom.

Aswad Ayinde, 52, testified previously under direct questioning by his defense lawyer that he was well-read and a combination of bookworm and jock when in high school. He also described himself as of high intelligence and morals as a young student growing up in Paterson.

While Ayinde, now of Atlantic City, testified that his SAT scores were about 1400, Passaic County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Squitieri, in a concerted attack on his credibility, presented him with transcripts that state that he received a score of 32 in the verbal portion and 38 in math, for a total score of 70. Another transcript, from New Jersey Institute of Technology, that she presented to him on the witness stand states that he was dismissed from the school after one year for poor grades.

Ayinde disputed the authenticity of all the transcripts, which the prosecution entered as evidence in the trial before jurors and state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin in Paterson. Ayinde said to his knowledge, a score as low as 70 is impossible to get on the SAT and he maintained he was a good student both in high school and beyond.

"It's not my transcript," he said, speaking of the NJIT transcript, when the prosecutor showed it to him.

"So there's some other Aswad Ayinde out there?" Squitieri said, noting that his former name of "Eric McGill" was also on the transcript, reflecting his legal name change in 1977 during mid-semester. "Does it say academic dismissal here?" she said, pointing to the transcript.

"That's what it says. I wasn't dismissed, though. These aren't my records. I think you know that."

"Sir, they are your records. Maybe you don't want them to be, but …"

With that, Newark defense attorney Daryl Pennington objected to Squitieri's commenting instead of questioning.

Squitieri also entered as evidence a letter from a company named GAF; Ayinde had testified he left NJIT to go to work for a year and a half there.

"Would it surprise you that there are no records of you ever working at GAF, the job you said you worked at for a year and a half? The job you said you left school for?" Squitieri asked. She noted that the document had the company's seal and letterhead and was from its human resources department.

"No, that's not what it says," Ayinde responded. "It says no records FOUND."

Ayinde has denied on the witness stand ever beating or raping his daughter, as the prosecution charges. He also denied claims from his wife and daughter during the trial that he claimed he was a prophet, controlled their diet, denied them doctors' care and restricted their contact with the outside world.

He depicted himself on direct questioning as a smart, moral, intelligent, well-read man who was raised on the finer things in life, such as Armani suits and exposure to different cultures. He said he ultimately chose to raise his family in an unconventional way, acknowledging there were two "co-wives" during the marriage, that he delivered his children himself at home, home-schooled them and ran a "holistic household." But he said all of it was for their benefit, and that they were never abused.

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:whatever: creep, I really dislike him.

A jury found former Paterson resident Aswad Ayinde guilty Wednesday on all counts of molesting his biological daughter from about age 8 until she finally bore his child as a teenager in what prosecutors said was a warped attempt to create his own “blueblood” race.

Ayinde, 52, was convicted on multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, aggravated criminal sexual contact and criminal sexual contact. He faces 40 years when sentenced and more than 100 years if convicted of all the charges he faces in subsequent trials in which he is charged with raping and impregnating four other daughters.

“We definitely found the daughter’s testimony credible,” said juror Suzanne Miller, as she left the courthouse with fellow jurors. “We all agreed. It was a unanimous decision.”

The daughter, now 23, testified that her father frequently beat her, her mother and siblings in front of each other. She said Ayinde began sexually molesting her when she was about 8 years old. She graphically detailed how the sexual acts escalated in nature and frequency until she became pregnant and bore his child at 15. She testified that Ayinde told her he was Christ, the prophet, and that together they were creating their own race.

What’s next
While Ayinde awaits four more trials on similar charges involving four other daughters, all to be held in Paterson state Superior Court, it is possible he could enter into a plea agreement in those cases, though officials say there has been no indication that will happen.

The next trial date will be set following Ayinde’s Jan. 7 sentencing on this case.

The jury, seated before state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin in Paterson, began its deliberations Tuesday afternoon and reached its verdict at 3:21 p.m. Wednesday. Ayinde showed no emotion as the verdict was read.

Ayinde was being held in the Passaic County Jail on $1 million bail during the trial. Reddin revoked that $1 million bail and ordered that he continue being held until sentencing on Jan. 7.

Ayinde, also known as Eric McGill and now of Atlantic City, was arrested in July 2006. Prosecutors described him as a blueblood, or someone who believes in keeping his bloodlines pure. In all, five of Ayinde’s daughters were allegedly raped. The self-described filmmaker, soft drink entrepreneur and landlord allegedly committed the assaults from 1985 through 2002 in Paterson, East Orange, Orange and Eatontown.

Four of the alleged victims were daughters with his wife Beverly, who testified at trial. Three of those four daughters bore six children by their natural father, prosecutors charge.

Jurors in this trial were not allowed to know about the other alleged sexual assault victims, except as it related to the oppressive and physically abusive household he maintained. The same will be the case with each subsequent trial.

Beverly Ayinde testified during the trial that Ayinde controlled every aspect of their lives – depriving them of certain foods, keeping them away from doctors and schools and not even getting them birth certificates.

The children were home-birthed and home-schooled and they were raised as vegetarians, Ayinde acknowledged from the witness stand during his defense. But, he said, it was all part of a holistic lifestyle, not deprivation. He denied allegations of ever beating or raping his daughter and claimed a spiritual adviser who the family befriended in 2001 ultimately brainwashed his wife and children into perpetuating such lies.

The family ultimately left Ayinde in 2001. The daughter that is at the center of this trial went to the police about the years of abuse in 2006.

“I’m really happy with the jury’s verdict. I’m glad justice was served,” said Passaic County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Squitieri, who argued the case for the state.

Judge Reddin, in thanking the jury for its work, said he understood it’s not easy sitting in judgment of someone but that they should know: “If I had to render a decision, I would have decided exactly what you decided.”

Along with family members’ testimony, forensics experts testified they believed Ayinde and his daughter were the parents of a now-8-year-old child the victim bore in late 2001, based on DNA evidence.

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The daughter, now 23, testified that her father frequently beat her, her mother and siblings in front of each other. She said Ayinde began sexually molesting her when she was about 8 years old. She graphically detailed how the sexual acts escalated in nature and frequency until she became pregnant and bore his child at 15. She testified that Ayinde told her he was Christ, the prophet, and that together they were creating their own race.

Just what is it with these people who use Jesus or God as a reason to molest or kill? I don't get it. This man is insane!!! And, how I feel for those kids and the wife. Horrific!! He needs to get life in prison w/no possibility of parole.

March 25, 2013

Ayinde, formerly known as Eric McGill, was convicted in 2010 on all counts of molesting another daughter from age 8 until she bore his child as a teenager and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.  The defendant has a varied professional background that includes directing the video for the Fugees’ “Killing Me Softly,” which won an MTV best R&B video music award in 1996.

Sources say Aswad Ayinde remained calm throughout the proceedings. Prosecutors told the jury that Ayinde had proclaimed himself a “prophet,” and insisted that all the children he fathered be born at home in order to avoid legal documentation of their births.  Prosecutors alleged the children were completely isolated and subject to years of emotional manipulation, brutal beatings, and repeated rapes.


Children Completely Isolated

Ayinde’s former wife and the victim testified during the trial, and reportedly said Ayinde often talked of how he could easily kill the children without repercussions because there was no evidence they existed. It was one of many tactics Ayinde employed the state alleged, to keep his daughters and their mother from telling anyone what was going on in the home.
Sources say Ayinde’s daughter testified that Ayinde started molesting her when she was 8, and impregnated her with the first of four babies when she was 12. She and her mother only reported him to authorities in 2005.


Ludicrous Defense

In a practically nonsensical defense, Ayinde’s defense attorney argued that the family had made “a lifestyle choice” and the incestuous sex and child-bearing by his daughters was “consensual.”  Sex with a minor is never “consensual” under the law; even if it were, it would be difficult to convince a jury that an 8-year-old girl could possibly make an informed consent to a sexual relationship with her father.
Nina C. Remson Ayinde’s attorney, further argued that there is no way to confirm when the victim daughter’s children were born because there are no birth certificates.  She argued that the victim was much older than alleged when sexual relations between her and her father commenced. Clearly, the jury also found this defense inane, and agreed with the prosecution that Aswad Ayinde raped his daughters and forced them to bear his children.
Ayinde has already been sentenced to 40 years in prison with regard to the 2010 conviction, and faces another 50-year maximum sentence with regard to Friday’s findings.  He faces more than 100 years if convicted of all the charges in the current and pending trials.

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