Mario Roberto Torres

FCF Healing Colombia Project Managers Mario Roberto Torres and Sophia Dow

Agustin in Colombia, circa early 2000s

Mario Roberto Torres (born 1952, Argentine citizen, aka Agustin) is a current member of the Family International and a founding member of the Asociacion Los Niños de Dios Internacional in Argentina. He and his spouse, Alice Sophia Dow are the managers of Family Care Foundation project number S09, Healing Colombia.[1]

According to a glossary prepared by Héctor Walter Navarro, Mario Torres and and his wife believed they were the reincarnation of Juan Domingo Peron and Maria Eva Duarte (Evita).[2]

In the 1980s he held positions of leadership in the Family, including National Area Servant and Visiting Servant for Argentina. He and his wife also ran the Argentine FF Home. He was also a guitarist and vocalist for the Family musical group Forever Young.

In 1986, he made a public confession to members of the Family in Argentina that, while visting Homes in Northwestern Argentina, he had violated the 1983 rule banning inter-Home sex by having sex with a woman in another home who had a sexually transmitted disease and that both of them had then infected dozens of others including the majority of the adults in the home in Corrientes, Argentina. Several former second generation members have alleged that he was in the habit of sexually harassing and groping young teen girls.

In April and May 1993, he and his wife were questioned by the police in Buenos Aires and gave sworn statements to court officials investigating the disappearance and abduction of Cary and Ruth Frouman's children. One of the missing children, who was not reunited with his relatives until 1997, has alleged that Mario Torres and his wife, Sophia Dow, were participants in a conspiracy with Stuart Harris Baylin, Claire Borowik and others to conceal and abduct the Frouman children. Specifically, it has been alleged that Torres and Dow made false and misleading statements in their sworn testimony and that they failed to inform a social worker who visited their home on May 5, 1993 that two of the missing Frouman children were then living at their residence (Ombu No. 859, entre Maria y Diego) in Don Torcuato.

On September 1, 1993, ten Homes in the Buenos Aires area were raided by Argentine police officers who were looking for the abducted Frouman children and investigating other matters. Mario Torres and his wife escaped being arrested at that time because they were elsewhere. However, their children were taken into protective custody and they were arrested more than a week later when they tried to visit them.

More Information

• Healing Colombia — Family Care Foundation project run by Mario Torres and Sophia Dow
• Toronto Star: Couple held after bid to visit kids in custody — 1993-09-13
• Tribunal de Menores de Mercedes - Cause number 32.202 — minors Frouman E. and others regarding Art. 10 of Law 10.067
• Case 81/89 Cavazza, Juan C. and others, on Inf. Art.125, 139, 140, 142, Par.l, 142 bis, 210, 293 of the Code of Proceedings and art.3 of Law 23,592. Federal Court of San Isidro, 1 Sec.2 Office II, Reg. 443.