Fugees Director Aswad Ayinde Given 90 Years for Fathering 6 Children with Own Daughters
By TOYIN OWOSEJE:
Prosecutors said Ayinde kept the kids from revealing the rape by beating them and isolating them from other children.
Award-winning music video producer Aswad Ayinde has been sentenced to 90 years in prison after a New Jersey court found him guilty of raping and impregnating his daughters.
The shamed star, who won an MTV award for directing The Fugees' Killing Me Softly in 1996, admitted repeatedly raping five of his seven girls to create a 'pure' bloodline that would survive Doomsday.
Many of the assaults are said to have taken place from the mid-1980s to 2002 in an abandoned funeral home, before he and his wife separated.
Ayinde, 55, was able to conceal his plot by delivering the babies himself and beating and isolating his daughters by home schooling them, the court heard during his trial.
Ayinde buried at least two babies who died in the home, without notifying authorities or obtaining birth certificates, NBC New York reported.
According to court documents, the former music producer and self-proclaimed prophet fathered six children with his daughters over the years. He also had nine children with his former wife, Beverly, and another three with two other women.
"He said the world was going to end, and it was just going to be him and his offspring and that he was chosen," Beverly Ayinde said at a pre-trial hearing.
"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."
In 2006, the molested sisters decided to go to the authorities after learning that Ayinde had fathered more children with other women.
Prosecutors revealed that Ayinde began having sex with his second daughter from the time she eight years old, and fathered her four children.
When the now-35-year-old woman stood up to testify, Superior Court Judge Raymond Reddin ordered Ayinde to put down the court papers he was hunched over and face her, news website Northjersey.com reports.
"I can't describe how much you hurt me and my sisters," she said. "You should've told the truth instead of lying.
"But obviously, with your head down like that, you do not understand."
Reddin added 50 years to the 40-year prison sentence Ayinde, 54, received in 2010 after being convicted of raping another of his daughters, who bore a fifth child.
Ayinde faces three more trials because he requested separate hearings.
