Aswad Ayinde raped his daughters — impregnating three of them — because, he declared, the world was ending and his offspring would be the sole survivors, his former wife testified in state court Wednesday.
“He was having regular relationships with all the girls,” said Beverly Ayinde, appearing calm and collected during a pre-trial hearing before state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin in Paterson. “I wasn’t fighting back. I was afraid to fight back.”
Beverly Ayinde said all the children were home-schooled. No one saw a doctor. The grandchildren were delivered by Aswad Ayinde himself, with her assistance, she said. There weren’t even birth certificates.
In all, five of Ayinde’s daughters were allegedly raped. Four of the alleged victims were the daughters of Beverly. Three of those four daughters bore six children by their natural father, who threatened to kill the family if anyone revealed the dark family secret, Beverly Ayinde testified.
When Ayinde was arrested in July 2006, prosecutors described him as a “blueblood,” or someone who believes in keeping his bloodlines pure. 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 one period, sex occurred in an abandoned funeral home in East Orange with no heat that Ayinde had bought and made the family live in, Ms. Ayinde testified. He eventually renovated one room and lived in it by himself, while the rest of the family was made to live in the dilapidated portion, she said. 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.
Source: NorthJersey.com
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