‘Cult mom’ Lori Vallow’s husband Chad Daybell ‘sexually assaulted woman during “energy healing” session’
CHAD Daybell, the husband of “cult mom” Lori Vallow, allegedly sexually assaulted a woman during an energy healing session in 2018, according to a new report.
Daybell, who is currently in jail in after he was arrested last week, has been accused of assaulting Julie Rowe, an author with whom he published books between 2014 to 2017.
on Friday that Rowe claims the two met during an “energy healing session” in Rexburg in December 2018.
There, she claims, Daybell her before rubbing his genitals against her body while the two were both clothed.
"I had no idea that he was going to do what he did to me, and I felt very betrayed," Rowe said. "I felt used, abused, manipulated. I felt betrayed. It was awful."
Rowe said she didn’t report what happened to , but Inside Edition reported the news outlet spoke with two people who heard Rowe’s account of what happened at the time.
Daybell’s lawyer, John Prior, did not immediately return The Sun’s multiple requests for comment.
The author said before the alleged assault, Daybell made an inappropriate comment to her during a phone call in October 2018.
Rowe, who said she’s married with children, said she had been with Daybell two times during their co-author relationship, but had never been alone with him.
She that Daybell also made advanced toward another woman in before his relationship with .
Rowe claimed how that relationship went sour after the woman's husband intercepted the texts and told Daybell he would go public with the intimate messages if Daybell didn't leave his wife alone.
Rowe said that as far as she knows, she and the Arizona woman were the only people Daybell told about an alleged vision he had of the death of his former wife, Tammy.
Three years earlier, Daybell told Rowe about the vision he had of Tammy, in October.
The vision, according to Rowe's claim, was that Tammy was going to die in "a car accident.”
Rowe said that she used to visit the Daybells often in Idaho until one day Daybell told her not to because "Tammy was off her antidepressants" and had become very jealous.
"I was very disturbed at something he said to me in 2018," Rowe said.
"He was frustrated and he said, ‘I feel like the plans can’t move on until the spouses are gone.'"
Three weeks before Tammy Daybell’s death, Rowe claims, Daybell said, “in a frustrated, almost angry voice, very frustrated, ‘I feel like my plan can’t move on until Tammy has died.'"
The two people Rowe told about the alleged assault included a member of her security team and author Eric Smith, who told Inside Edition he once considered Daybell a friend.
Smith said he thinks Daybell “lured” women in by using spiritual knowledge.
"This ability he had to present himself as a real pious person with humility — like a guru — I think he used that. I think he worked that angle on people," Smith said.
"He was sort of preying on their religious backgrounds and beliefs and spirituality," he added. "I know Chad is a gifted person spiritually, he does see things, I know he does, and I've tested him on that and we have some very special conversations on spiritual matters.”
“But when you start to use those gifts to take advantage of people, I think that's pretty sick and I think you've crossed a line there."
The security team member who Rowe said she told of the incident told the news outlet he saw Daybell “manipulate” women at conferences where Daybell spoke.
"Chad was using this doctrine to groom women, to get them to do something that normally they wouldn't do," the security team member, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
"Or in other words, give up their creative power to him, for his own gain. He was no longer following the creator's plan of agency, but he was trying to get women to do things that would give him more power."
MOST READ IN NEWS
when the remains of Vallow's missing children — Tylee Ryan, 17, and JJ Vallow, seven — .
He’s been jailed on charges of concealment or destruction of evidence.
Vallow has been charged with desertion and nonsupport of dependent children, resisting or obstructing officers, criminal solicitation to commit a crime, and contempt of court.