Tag: cults

South Shore cult ‘elder’ guilty of child rape to serve at least 30 years in prison

A leader of a South Shore religious sect will spend at least 30 years in prison after he was found guilty last month of raping and abusing two girls in the “tribe,” officials said.

Nehemyah Smith, 37, was convicted of all 25 charges last month, including 12 counts of aggravated child rape and multiple counts of indecent assault and battery. 

Smith was sentenced in Fall River Superior Court Wednesday to 13 to 18 years in prison for rape and child rape charges. He will then serve 17 to 22 years for aggravated child rape charges with a ten year age difference, according to the court clerk.

Smith, of Plymouth, was a “trusted elder” within the Twelve Tribes, an international religious organization led by men where families give up their possessions and live communally, according to court records. The known abuse took place between 2016 and 2020. 

The Twelve Tribes has communities in Milton, Raynham, Hyannis, and Plymouth, where members run a restaurant called the Yellow Deli. Smith’s victims were abused in all of those towns except Plymouth, according to court documents.

The group’s website describes it as “an emerging spiritual nation” whose members aim to live like the early disciples and follow the Old and New Testament. 

An investigation from the Denver Post in 2022 described the Twelve Tribes as a cult that exploits members, pushes racist, misogynistic, and homophobic teachings, and fails to protect children from sexual abuse.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, said Twelve Tribes is a white supremacist cult that extensively beats children who misbehave and believes that homosexuality should be punished by death.

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Feds, city to crack down on animal sacrifices in NYC’s Jamaica Bay after dog-carcass with snapped neck, wounded pigs found

City and federal parks authorities are beefing up resources near Jamaica Bay in Queens following The Post’s expose last week of surging animal sacrifices in the area. 

The National Parks Service promised to install a pair of mobile lights by the Addabbo Bridge in the federally-managed Spring Creek Park to ward off people torturing and killing animals under the cover of darkness, Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) announced.

NPS spokeswoman Daphne Yun said the agency would also provide additional parks police patrol in the area, where animal rescuers said at least eight animals were found dead or maimed since late July.

These have included five wounded pigs, a near-dead baby rat stuffed in a bag with chicken bones, and a dog carcass with its neck snapped. 

The city’s Parks Department also pledged to increase overnight patrols in Sunset Cove Park, Broad Channel, where gruesome animal remains also have been found, Ariola’s office said.

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Former Mormon reveals how she was trained to be the ‘perfect trad wife’ from age 12

An ex-Mormon has lifted the lid on the unusual lessons she was taught at the church when she was just 12 years old so that she could be the ‘perfect’ stay-at-home wife.

Alyssa Grenfell, 31, grew up in an ultra-strict household but fled from Utah to New York in 2017 – and has since been focusing on reclaiming her body following the move in her late 20s.

The former member of the Mormon church has recently been sharing tidbits about her transformation and her journey to freedom.

Most recently, she took to YouTube to unveil the various teachings that were told to the children of the Mormon church – adding that they were prepped to become wives from a very early age.

She admitted that she was forced to learn how to cook, clean and sew – while also being forced to remain abstinent. 

Alyssa captioned the video: ‘Brainwashed Mormon Mommies?’ 

In it, she discussed the rise of ‘trad wives’ – a term used to describe women who choose to live a tradition lifestyle that seems them spending their days cooking, cleaning, wearing modest clothing, and being submissive to their husbands. 

Trad wives have become increasingly visible in recent months as many women boast about reverting to the traditional roles of housewives, largely practiced in the fifties and sixties.

‘I was trained to be a wife and mother when I was about 12,’ Alyssa said at the beginning of the video. 

She then explained that the women within the community were forced to learn how to become the perfect wife – beginning with cooking. 

Alyssa noted that as women they were taught to make spaghetti and told to serve it to the boys. 

She explained: ‘This is the bread and butter of what I was raised on. It reminds me of how many different times I would go to young women’s activities and the boys would be playing basketball and having a great time and the young women would be learning a skill like cooking or sewing. 

‘I have one distinct memory where we learned to plan a meal and we made spaghetti and the boys were playing basketball.

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Jewish ‘cult’ leaders sentenced for kidnap of 2 NY kids, including a child bride, in twisted sex scheme

Leaders of a Jewish fundamentalist cult were sentenced to more than a decade behind bars for kidnapping two kids— including a child bride – then smuggling them into Mexico, prosecutors said.

Three brothers, who are members of the Lev Tahor sect, allegedly forced the girl back into the arms of her adult “husband” in a sickening and sophisticated sex scheme.

Yakov Weingarten, 34; Smiel Weingarten, 28; and Yoil Weingarten, 36; were sentenced Tuesday for snatching the children from their upstate New York home in 2018 after their mother fled Lev Tahor, a group of zealots who practice stomach-churning habits like child marriages, underage sex and family separations, US Attorney Damian Williams said Wednesday.

The brothers — who live in Guatemala — used a variety of disguises, aliases, drop phones, fake travel documents and encrypted apps to pull off the 3 a.m. kidnapping that December day, then smuggle the brother and sister across the border, the feds said.

Local, federal and international authorities launched a massive three-week search that eventually found Yante Teller, 14, and Chaim Teller, 12, and returned them to their mother.

In March, a federal jury convicted the trio of child sexual exploitation and kidnapping charges.

As punishment, US District Judge Nelson Román has sentenced Yakov and Smiel to 14 years in prison, and Yoil to 12 years, the feds said.

“The sentencing of the Weingarten brothers holds them accountable for kidnapping children from their mother in the middle of the night, including for the purpose of coercing a child into a sexual relationship with an adult,” Williams said in a statement.

“This Office will do everything in its power to protect children and use every available tool to investigate and prosecute those who sexually exploit them.”

The twisted saga began in 2017, when Lev Tahor leaders arranged for Yante — then just 12-years-old –to marry an 18-year-old man, the feds said.

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FBI is investigating a secretive religious sect after child sex abuse allegations spanning decades

Disturbing allegations of child sex abuse within a secretive religious sect of Christianity are being brought to light after several former members came forward to share their stories.

The sect is known as the Two by Twos (2×2) or The Church with No Name, and its ministers – who are called “workers” — travel in pairs from home to home of church members to spread the gospel.

But a recent year-long investigation conducted by ABC News, which aired on the season finale of IMPACT by Nightline, revealed that hundreds of people in the religious organization were sexually abused as children.

The allegations are so widespread that the FBI has started an investigation into the church, it announced in February.

Dozens of alleged victims, from at least 34 states, shared their stories with ABC News. There were claims of abuse that dates back to the 1950s and some victims accused the same person of abuse decades apart.

The outlet also reached out to over 20 former and current leaders, known as “overseers,” but all denied knowing about the widespread abuse.

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Church of Scientology ignored woman’s ‘very real psychosis,’ stopped her from receiving mental health care before suicide, lawsuit claims

The mother of a Florida woman who died by suicide has slapped the Church of Scientology with a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging the church “brainwashed” her daughter who struggled with her mental health, into thinking traditional therapy or medical treatments were “unnecessary and abhorrent.”

Whitney Mills, 40, of Clearwater, died by suicide in May 2022, according to the civil lawsuit filed in the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Pinellas County.

Leila Mills alleges the church knew quite well that her daughter — who was among the highest ranks in the church after shelling out “hundreds of thousands of dollars to attain her status,” the lawsuit claims — was struggling to cope.

But “upon learning of her problems, the Scientology defendants took control of Mills’ medical care, thus foreclosing her from obtaining the exact treatment she needed,” her family claims.

Instead, she was “misinformed and misdiagnosed with Lyme disease and a cancerous ovarian cyst” while the church, and specifically one doctor was “largely ignoring her very real psychosis and mental health crisis.”

Whitney Mills was “extorted” by the church, her mother says, and everything the church “foisted” on her daughter was “outside the field of mental health treatment, and everything failed,” the family’s attorney Ramon Rasco wrote.

Stopped from seeking any real help, Whitney Mills “felt she had no other choice,” but to kill herself.

“Not only did they not properly care for her, contrary to the duty they undertook, they actually suggested she ‘drop the body,’” the lawsuit emphasizes repeatedly, using a phrase coined by Church of Scientology leaders including founder L. Ron Hubbard.

The phrase means suicide or death or to leave one’s corporal body, according to the lawsuit.

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Woman, 24, who grew up in a CULT lifts the lid on all the ‘extremist’ rules she was forced to follow as a member of the religious sect

A young woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, has taken to TikTok to speak out about her upbringing in a Christian cult.

Marissa Martin, 24, was spurred to address her childhood after admitting she was lucky for the lack of ‘hate’ she has usually received on her posts – but with one major exception: Christians on the defensive.

‘I want to talk about the fact that I don’t ever get hate on my videos, which is amazing, I have really amazing viewers,’ she began, also simultaneously testing out a recipe combining raspberry syrup and iced matcha.

‘But the one kind of video that I make that I get hate on every time is when I talk about the cult I grew up in,’ she described.

‘This cult I grew up in, yes it was a Christian cult. So a lot of Christians that watch my videos or see the video get personally offended by me saying, “I grew up in a cult,”‘ she went on.

‘But here’s the thing – it was an extremist Christian religion. Extremist, okay?’

Specifically, her family had been in the Independent Fundamental Baptist church.

The organization, composed of local churches preaching deeply fundamentalist Christian messaging, was the subject of 2023 docuseries Let Us Prey: A Ministry of Scandals.

The harrowing docuseries highlighted in particular the unchecked sexual abuse of women and children running rampant across the congregations.

Marissa went on to elaborate on the strict dress code that only permitted ‘solid white’ casual shoes – while ‘dress shoes’ could be solid black.

She continued: ‘We had to wear skirts down to the mids of our calves. We couldn’t show our ankles. We had to wear crew socks. We also had to wear pantyhose [under skirts].

‘We couldn’t show our shoulders. We couldn’t show our collarbones.’

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It’s one of Australia’s most baffling cases – a mother, her daughter and friend who disappeared while under the spell of a cult leader. Now, a retired cop has lifted the lid on what he thinks REALLY happened

A retired policeman is on a mission to solve one of Australia’s most baffling missing persons cases, which began 17 years ago with the disappearance of an entire household who were members of a doomsday cult. 

Barry McIntosh, whose interest in the case is personal, served 35 years with Victoria Police and hopes to search a remote patch of Western Australian bushland with cadaver dogs.

Mr McIntosh is the uncle of Chantelle McDougall, who was last seen alive in July 2007 with her British-born partner Gary Felton, their six-year-old daughter Leela and friend Tony Popic.   

Ms McDougall, 27, had fallen under the spell of 45-year-old Felton, a self-styled spiritualist who had assumed the identity of an English workmate called Simon Kadwell.

At the time of their disappearance, Ms McDougall and Leela had been living with Felton in a rundown farmhouse at Nannup, about 280km south of Perth, with 42-year-old Mr Popic.

Mr McIntosh is convinced Felton was involved in the deaths of his niece, her daughter and Mr Popic and is determined to find their bodies.

‘[Felton] spoke of providing Chantelle and Leela with a drug that would provide a peaceful death and that Tony would bury them all,’ he says.

‘Tony would then walk into the bush to take his own life.’ 

The charismatic Felton – ‘Si’ to his acolytes – was the founder of Truth Fellowship and had 40 online followers of what has been described as an international doomsday cult.

Felton called his followers The Forecourt and spoke to them through a chatroom known as The Gateway where they would discuss teachings from his book, Servers of the Divine Plan.

That book warned about Earth’s pending doom but promised a new world of higher consciousness once a 75,000-year ‘cycle’ had run its course.

Neighbours at Nannup said ‘off the planet’ Felton was obsessed with electromagnetic fields and deeply paranoid.

Felton, who did not work and relied on the subservient Ms McDougall and Mr Popic for financial support, slept during the day and stayed up all night on his computer.  

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Archaeologists Searched For a Cult’s Secrets—and Stumbled Upon an Ancient Henge Instead

The search to better understand a cult from over 1,300 years ago led to an even older find: one of the largest henge sites ever seen in eastern England, dating back to the Neolithic period.

The legend surrounding the ruins of a medieval abbey near Crowland, England, links the henge with an Anglo-Saxon hermitage honoring Saint Guthlac. But it turns out that the site’s history runs much deeper.

After Guthlac gave up his life as the son of a nobleman to live in solitude, he became a popular figure. Shortly after his death in 714 AD, a small monastic community formed in his memory. The success of this cult helped establish the Crowland Abbey in the 10th century, but little else is known about Guthlac and the location on which his hermitage once rested.

In searching for the site, archaeologists found something arguably even more exciting. A study published in the Journal of Field Archaeology chronicles a location known as Anchor Church Field and its ties to ancient history.

Archaeologists long suspected that Anchor Church Field was the site of Guthlac’s hermitage. But when a team from Newcastle University and the University of Sheffield joined forces to excavate the location, they discovered an unknown Neolithic or Early Bronze Age henge—defined by English Heritage as a prehistoric circular or oval earthen enclosure with a ring-shaped bank on the outside and a ring-shaped ditch on the inside, likely used for ceremonial purposes. It turns out the circular earthwork is one of the largest ever found in eastern England, and carbon dating on a timber portion of the henge places its construction at about 1400 BC.

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A new religion has Americans looking to the stars

Belief in aliens is no longer fringe. Fifty-one percent of Americans think that unidentified flying objects are likely controlled by extraterrestrials — an increase of more than 20 percentage points since 1996. And one in three believe we’re likely to make formal contact with aliens in the next 50 years.

But as someone who studies the psychology of religion, what’s most striking to me isn’t the widespread belief that aliens are out there — in the vastness of the universe, it’s unlikely that we’re alone — but rather the growing popularity of blending this belief with spirituality. From group sky-watching sessions in the desert Southwest to backyard meetups in suburbia, people are using practices like meditations, mantras, and offerings to try to commune with god-like entities they believe possess vast knowledge and technological power. And since UFOs are the supposed vehicles that aliens use to visit earth, looking for them, or sometimes even trying to entice them to appear, is a primary focus.

Is that enough to qualify this growing movement as a religion? For some scholars, the answer is yes. Diana Walsh Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, says many faiths are characterized by stories of divine beings coming down from the sky. Whether it’s angels, spirits, or gods, we humans have always looked to the heavens for entities greater than ourselves and yearned to join them in their higher realms. Aliens easily fit that narrative. And in truth, religions based around enlightened extraterrestrials aren’t new. Raëlism, for example, is a minor religion that emerged in the 1970s in which adherents seek communion with the Elohim — an alien race they believe created Jesus, Buddha, and other great teachers as alien-human hybrids.

But now UFO spirituality is no longer only comprised of small cults; it’s a burgeoning movement — one the psychologist Clay Routledge argues can fill the spiritual needs of a growing segment of secular Americans. The question is: Why?

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