Doomsday Preppers Arrested After 2 Women Flee to Police

Pair accuse Mirko and Regina Ceska of physical and sexual abuse
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 15, 2019 8:59 AM CDT
Doomsday Preppers Arrested After 2 Women Flee to Police
Mirko and Regina Ceska.   (Wakulla County Sheriff's Office)

Two residents of Florida now face a different kind of doomsday than the one they imagined. Mirko Ceska, 58, and his wife, Regina, 55, face charges including sexual battery and abuse after two women fled their home in Wakulla County and went to police, reports NBC News. The women, whose names and ages were not made public, say the Ceskas essentially forced them to tend livestock, use a loom, and grow vegetables on the family farm, and subjected them to physical and sexual abuse. One of the women had fresh bruises on her back and arm. Police did not specify their relationship to the Ceskas except to say that the couple had "custodial responsibility" for them. The Washington Post notes that the Ceskas adopted twin girls more than a dozen years ago who would be in their 20s today.

The Ceskas were so-called "doomsday preppers" and kept the farm and other properties well stocked with food and weapons in the event of some type of world catastrophe, say the women who fled the property in Crawfordville, outside Tallahassee. The women say they could not leave the property or even communicate with other people. If they came into view of anyone, the women said they had to smile and act happy or risk a beating. "I didn’t even know that they had kids,” a neighbor tells WCTV in the wake of the arrests. Others use terms like "standoffish" to describe the Ceskas. Police say the women also accused Mirko Ceska of subjecting them to sexual acts, sometimes in the presence of his wife. Investigators say they found a search for an "incestuous video" on his phone. (More preppers stories.)

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