The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP

Secretary of State for Home Affairs

Home Office, 50 Queen Anne's Gate

London SW1H 9AT

Dear Hon Mr Straw:

I am the former president of The Sathya Sai Baba Center of Greater New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. For 19 years I was a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba and I was asked to form a full Center here ( by the current Regional President) in 1995, for which I served as its president until April, 2000. You have been informed by others that this Sathya Sai Baba has been charged with criminal sexual acts with underage youngsters and teenagers, as well as with some adults--all males.

When I received from two British citizens, Faye and David Bailey, a document entitled THE FINDINGS, and then made a few telephone calls, and then received other correspondence from U.S. citizens, my heart was broken and my emotions were doing gyrations and back flips. It was unimaginable to contemplate that this avatar was not who he claimed to be. A being of such enormous power, followed and adored by millions, who for 60 years has been attracting devotees by all the good works of service to humanity, and the individual transformations by regular devotional meetings--such a being I had believed was the avatar of the age, the Avatar of all avatars, the Supreme Being incarnated into human form! All this I believed.

The God I have believed in all my life could NEVER rape and molest young boys and teenagers. This was the ultimate dilemma: believe my positive experiences via Sai Baba and ignore what so many were now saying, or give open-minded attention to the possibility that this baba was a criminal via pedophilia and rape. I could not doubt these charges coming from friends and acquaintances, and yet how could I doubt what I had firmly believed for 19 years? I went inward, and appealed to the all-pervasive God. My answer and decision were determined in three days. Then three days later I rejected Sai Baba and the Sai organization. I did not reject the ones who still believe in him. Later, I came to reject the top leadership in USA because they have continued to cover up the crimes of this baba, and will not warn parents going to India that their young sons are in harms way by being alone with him in the private inner interview room at his ashram.

Here in the USA we have various agencies apprised of these crimes of ssb. I am appealing to the government of the UK, through your good offices Mr. Straw, to fully investigate the charges that British victims of these rapes and molestations, of both underage boys and teenagers, have made in recent months--as well as long standing ones of boys who are now adults.

My sincere appreciation for you attention to this most serious matter.

Dave Lyons,

former president of The Sathya Sai Baba Center of Greater New Orleans