Ecclesia Member Pleads Not Guilty

The ninth member of the controversial Ecclesia Athletic Assn. to be charged in a wide-ranging investigation pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of child abuse Monday in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Roosevelt Brown, 31, was arrested June 22 in Clackamas County, Ore., at the request of Los Angeles authorities, who allege that he beat his son, Roosevelt Jr., 11, at the Ecclesia headquarters on Avalon Boulevard in South-Central Los Angeles last October.

An extradition hearing had been set for today in Oregon where the group maintains a farmhouse, but Brown, who had been released on bail, surrendered Monday in Los Angeles, said Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Ralph Plummer.

Officials in Los Angeles and Oregon have been investigating Ecclesia since the Oct. 13, 1988, beating death of the 8-year-old Dayna Broussard, daughter of the group’s founder, Eldridge Broussard. Four Ecclesia members have been convicted of manslaughter in Oregon in Dayna’s death and another five, including Brown, have been charged with various counts of child abuse in the beatings of other children who were members of the group.