Tag: cults

FBI interviewed individuals who accuse Amy Coney Barrett faith group of abuse

The FBI has interviewed several individuals who have alleged they were abused by members of the People of Praise (PoP), a secretive Christian sect that counts conservative supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a lifelong member, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The individuals were contacted following a years-long effort by a group called PoP Survivors, who have called for the South Bend-based sect to be investigated for leaders’ handling of sexual abuse allegations. The body, which has 54 members, has alleged that abuse claims were routinely mishandled or covered up for decades in order to protect the close-knit faith group.

It is not clear whether the FBI has launched a formal investigation into the PoP.

The Guardian has confirmed that at least five individuals were contacted by the FBI and four gave detailed accounts to agents of abusive behavior they allegedly experienced or witnessed. Individuals spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity and said they believed the FBI interviews were part of an initial inquiry.

One woman who was interviewed by agents from Minneapolis, Minnesota, said she received an update last week and was told by agents that the investigation into her own claims, which involved allegations of sexual abuse by a teacher, had been closed. The woman told the Guardian that news had left her disappointed and defeated, and full of “a lot of questions”, because the agents had seemed interested in pursuing the matter.

A spokesperson for PoP Survivors said: “We urge the FBI to use their power to unearth the long-standing pattern of child sexual abuse and coverup in the People of Praise. All perpetrators and their enablers must finally be held accountable. We must ensure that no child is victimized and silenced by a People of Praise member ever again.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the PoP did not respond to a request for comment.

The PoP was founded in the 1970s as part of a Christian charismatic movement. The group is led exclusively by men. Like other charismatic communities, it blends Catholicism and Protestant Pentecostalism – its members are mostly Catholic but include some Protestants. In meetings, members are encouraged to share prophecies and speak in tongues. One former member said adherents believe God can speak through members to deliver messages, sometimes about their future.

A PoP handbook states that members are expected to be obedient to male authorities, or group heads, and are expected to give 5% of their earnings to the group. Heads are influential decision-makers in members’ lives, weighing in on issues ranging from dating to marriage, and determining where members should live.

After a waiting period, members agree to a covenant – a lifelong vow – to support each other “financially and materially and spiritually”.

The group has been criticized for endorsing discriminatory practices. Members who engage in gay sex are expelled, and private schools closely affiliated with the group – the Trinity Schools – have admission policies that in effect ban the children of gay parents from attending.

Single members are encouraged to live with other members of the community, including families with children, a practice that former members and adults who grew up in the sect say created opportunities for sexual abuse.

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An inside look at the ‘Satanic, neo-Nazi’ pedophile cult that ensnared NYC man arrested on gun charges

A Satanic pedophile cult uncovered by the FBI after the arrest of a Queens man two years ago is an offshoot of a much older neo-Nazi organization that wants to destroy Western civilization, according to an overseas nonprofit that’s been tracking the hate group.

Federal authorities stumbled upon the newer group – which is named “764” but goes by a number of aliases – while investigating Angel Almeida, a 23-year-old convicted felon from Queens who was busted with a gun in November 2021.

The loosely organized commune of creeps appears to be intensely interested in targeting kids on the internet, then threatening, intimidating or blackmailing them into recording acts of self-mutilation, animal abuse, sex acts and even their own suicides, according to an FBI warning issued earlier this month.

But sources told The Guardian that 764 is an outgrowth of an older, larger organization known as the Order of Nine Angles — which the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) called a “decentralized, Satanic, neo-Nazi organization” bent on the overthrow of Western governments.

The group — commonly referred to as O9A — believes the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage “corrupts modern society,” according to the ISD, an independent, non-profit human rights organization based in London.

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How NYC gun arrest uncovered a huge pedophile Satanic cult

The arrest of a Queens man on gun charges two years ago has led federal authorities to the discovery of a Satanic pedophile extortion cult that targets minors over the internet, a report said Thursday.

Investigators uncovered the heinous group, named 764, while probing disturbing social media posts made by Angel Almeida, 23, who was busted in November 2021 and charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, according to court documents and a report from The Guardian.

In February, Brooklyn federal prosecutors announced they had filed a superseding indictment against Almeida, adding charges related to child exploitation and enticement of minors.

Prior to Almeida’s arrest, the FBI followed anonymous tips that allegedly linked him to social media accounts containing vile posts about child sex abuse — including one Instagram profile, “@necropedocell,” that featured a photo of what appeared to be a child bound and gagged.

A post on another of Almeida’s alleged Instagram profiles showed him posing with ammunition strapped to his chest, in front of a black flag bearing the logo of the Order of Nine Angels (O9A), which prosecutors described as “a worldwide Satanist … group which embraces elements of neo-Nazism and white supremacy.”

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Doomsday cult leader who says he is reincarnation of Jesus is turning 1,500 children into sex slaves on remote Philippines island, lawmakers say

Clad in a white suit with gold watch and aviator sunglasses, the leader of quasi-religious cult Omega de Salonera looks more pop star than a Messiah.

But Jey Rence B Quilario was this week accused of heading a doomsday cult where ‘rape, sexual violence, child abuse, forced marriage was perpetrated on minors’.

Quilario, who claims to be a reincarnation of Jesus, was named using congressional privilege as well as his group in connection to ‘widespread exploitation’.

And Save the Children has urged the Filipino government to take immediate action to free the estimated 1,500 children held by the cult on a remote island.

On Monday the chairman of the senate committee on women and children senator Risa Hontiveros said: ‘This is a harrowing story of rape, sexual violence, child abuse, forced marriage perpetrated on minors by a cult in the municipality of Socorro, Surigao del Norte.

‘We are talking about over a thousand young people in the hands of a deceitful, cruel, and abusive cult… real children are in danger, and time is of the essence. We cannot, we must not, look away.’

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Right to repair’s unlikely new adversary: Scientologists

The right-to-repair movement has had its share of adversaries. From Big Tech to politicians and individuals who don’t think product repairability should be government-mandated, it has been a tedious battle for a movement that has seen major wins lately. One of the most recent wins came from Apple, a former DIY repair combatant, supporting repairability legislation. But taking Apple’s place is a new entity aiming to limit right-to-repair legislation: Scientologists.

Today, 404 Media reported on a letter sent on August 10 to the US Copyright Office by Ryland Hawkins of Author Services Inc. The company, its website and letterhead say, represents the “literary, theatrical, and musical works of L. Ron Hubbard, the late founder of Scientology. Author Services, according to records archived via the WayBackMachine, is owned by the Church of Spiritual Technology, which describes itself as a church within Scientology.

The letter addresses Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which “makes it unlawful to circumvent technological measures used to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works.” The Scientology group’s letter seeks to alter exemptions granted for self-repairing some consumer electronics, like video game consoles, laptops, home appliances, and farming tractors.

Author Services’ letter argues that while that exemption works for the “many consumer devices” that include “unilateral ‘shrink-wrap’ licenses governing the terms of use of the software,” they shouldn’t apply to devices that “can only be purchased and used by someone who possess [sic] particular qualifications or has been specifically trained in the use of the device.” With those products, the license agreement is “negotiated and agreed to in advance” of purchase and may include restrictions that are critical to “safe and proper” device usage.

The Scientology-tied group seeks an amendment to the exemption so that it doesn’t apply to software-powered devices that can only be purchased by someone with particular qualifications or training or that use software “governed by a license agreement negotiated and executed” before purchase.

Before we get into what horse the Church of Scientology could have in the right-to-repair race, let’s consider whether its amendment is extreme.

“It’s a totally unreasonable proposal,” Elizabeth Chamberlain, director of sustainability at iFixit, told Ars Technica. “I can imagine manufacturers using the presence of a ‘quick start’ guide for a product as evidence that their consumers are ‘specially trained in use of the device’ and thus denying broad access to repair.”

She noted that such an amendment would render the proposed exemptions for commercial and industrial equipment from right-to-repair activists “toothless.”

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Inside an Abusive Anti-Porn Camp for Teens

When Cameron was growing up in the 2010s, he was preoccupied​ with two things: that he was gay, and that there would be dire consequences if his parents and community found out. He lived in a small town in Utah, where over 90 percent of the residents are Mormon. “They are very strict about gender roles and sexuality,” he says.

But Cameron didn’t want to keep his secret to himself. In 2014, when he was 14, he came out to a close friend via text message. Soon after he sent the message, his parents went through his phone and discovered it. “They immediately confronted me about it,” he says. “I was barely ready to tell one person. I was not ready to have that conversation with my parents.”

That conversation was just the beginning. “There was probably about a year there where it was just absolutely brutal—where every day it was coming up around the dinner table,” says Cameron, identified here by a pseudonym at his request. “I can remember my mom picking me up from school and being like, ‘You realize that you’re taking away everything that I thought I could ever have, right? You realize that because of this, I’m never going to have grandchildren from you.'”

His parents’ disapproval was devastating enough, but Cameron says things got worse when the news spread throughout the community. Anonymous accounts started sending Cameron homophobic messages on Facebook. “All gays of the world should be strung up and drowned in the ocean,” he recalls one of them saying. Even scarier were the random people who showed up at the family’s doorstep to confront his mom.

“It was, honestly, really, really terrifying….Everybody around you hates you and essentially wants you purged from the earth,” Cameron says. Around this time, he attempted suicide.

In spite of the harassment, he managed to go on a few dates with guys when he was 16. Nothing panned out, but his parents found out about it. Around the same time, they found some gay porn on his phone. They started locking him in his room at night, forcing him to pee in Gatorade bottles.

During this time his father told a co-worker who was in his late 20s about Cameron. Soon the man “started reaching out and being very schmoozy,” Cameron said. “I was so alone. Everybody hated me….And here’s this person.” He was giving Cameron the attention he craved. They began having sexual encounters. Cameron says the relationship was consensual, yet “you’re under the age of consent, and there’s no way to justify pedophilia. But he was always just really, really nice.”

Once again, his parents found out. They confiscated his phone, so he could no longer talk with the man or look at porn. They also pressed charges, and the man was sent to prison for a year. Cameron was sent to his own prison of sorts: STAR Guides Wilderness Therapy, which bills itself as “the country’s premier wilderness treatment program for teens with technology, pornography and sexual addictions.”

These camps say they can change teens’ lives by helping them overcome severe mental and behavioral issues. STAR Guides claims the camp “provides a specialized ‘unplugged’ environment to reset and re-balance the physical, mental and spiritual health of youth…under the guidance of highly trained therapists and professionals, we provide a setting where youth can feel safe and supported when working through sensitive pornography or sexual issues along with trauma, free of fear, embarrassment or shame.” And some parents and teens testify that STAR Guides was a positive experience. “You gave me my daughter back, and helped her how she needed,” one parent said in an exit interview. A teen said the program was “extremely helpful and life-changing”; another said, “I found myself.”

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Leah Remini sues Scientology over alleged ‘harassment, intimidation, surveillance and defamation’

Actress Leah Remini has filed a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology for being “dead set on making her life a living hell now that she’s no longer a part of the church,” TMZ reported on Tuesday.

Remini is “being stalked and harassed by the Church of Scientology as part of a coordinated campaign to destroy her life because she left the religion,” TMZ learned from the complaint.

“According to the docs, obtained by TMZ, Leah claims Scientology is stalking her and invading her privacy because the church is determined to silence her and others who are critical of the religion,” TMZ wrote. “Leah claims the alleged abuse coming her way is part of a broader policy and practice of intimidation within the Church of Scientology … which she says dates all the way back to founder L. Ron Hubbard.”

Remini posted a statement to Instagram outlining her reasons for suing the faith.

“After 17 years of harassment, intimidation, surveillance, and defamation, I am filing a lawsuit against Scientology and David Miscavige,” Remini said. “While advocating for victims of Scientology has significantly impacted my life and career, Scientology’s final objective of silencing me has not been achieved. While this lawsuit is about what Scientology has done to me, I am one of thousands of targets of Scientology over the past seven decades. People who share what they’ve experienced in Scientology, and those who tell their stories and advocate for them, should be free to do so without fearing retaliation from a cult with tax exemption and billions in assets.”

Remini added that she is advocating for Scientology’s alleged victims.

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Feds fight Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere’s bid at new trial on claims FBI planted child porn on his computer

Federal prosecutors slammed convicted Nxivm sex cult leader Keith Raniere’s bid for a new trial — denouncing his claim that he has “newly discovered evidence” that proves the FBI planted evidence on his computer.

In a response filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court, prosecutors wrote that Raniere’s third attempt at securing a new trial — like his first two — was “entirely without merit,” adding that the motion should be denied as “untimely, unfounded, legally unsupported, and contrary to the evidence adduced at trial.”

When the 62-year-old sicko — who is serving a 120-year sex trafficking sentence — filed for a new trial in May 2022, he claimed he had unearthed evidence showing the government “manufactured child pornography and planted it on a computer hard drive to tie it to him,” according to court papers.

Raniere’s lawyers also said the feds “falsified, fabricated, and manipulated all the key evidence it used” to convict him of child exploitation and child porn.

Prosecutors, in the Friday filing, detailed the evidence the FBI found in Raniere’s Halfmoon, NY, residence — including nude photos of his first sex slave, Camila, who was around 15 years-old at the time.

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Allison Mack, actress convicted in NXIVM case, released from prison

Former television star Allison Mack, who provided “slaves” to NXIVM leader Keith Raniere for his secret group that blackmailed calorie-starved and sleep-deprived women into sex acts and subjected them to physical branding on their pelvic areas, has been released from federal prison.

The 40-year-old Mack, formerly of Halfmoon, pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy in 2019 in a deal that required she cooperate with federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. She was released from custody on Monday, according to the website of the federal Bureau of Prisons. 

Two years ago, Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced Mack to three years in prison, calling her “an essential accomplice” to Raniere. One female victim likened Mack’s role assisting Raniere in the secret group — Dominus Obsequious Sororium, or DOS, which translates in Latin to Lord/Master of the Obedient Female Companions — to that of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in her assistance to late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Mack is the first NXIVM defendant who received a prison sentence to complete their term. Former NXIVM president Nancy Salzman, 68, of Halfmoon, who pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy and received a three-and-a-half year sentence, is scheduled to be released in July 2024. NXIVM operations director Clare Bronfman, 44, the Seagrams’ heiress who lived in Manhattan and Clifton Park, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants for financial gain and fraudulent use of identification and received an 81-month sentence, is expected to be released in June 2025.

Two other defendants — NXIVM education director Lauren Salzman and bookkeeper Kathy Russell, both of whom lived in Halfmoon — received probation.

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How young religious Australian women were ‘brainwashed’ and lured into a South Korean sex cult to become ‘spiritual brides’ of a convicted rapist

A South Korean cult has been accused of recruiting vulnerable young Australian women at shopping centres to be brainwashed and then sent abroad. 

The victims were told they were the ‘spiritual brides’ of Jung Myung Seok (JMS), the self-proclaimed second coming of Jesus Christ and messiah of the Providence church he founded in 1978.

But JMS is a convicted rapist and the women were sent to his Wolmyeongdong compound not for any spiritual reasons, but to allegedly be sexually assaulted.

The recruiters are reportedly told to find tall, slim white women for JMS, and two Australian survivors, Liz and Amy (not their real names) have spoken out to warn others to be aware they could be targeted too.

Amy was recruited while on her way to meet a friend to go bowling at Melbourne Central shopping centre, she told Channel 7’s Spotlight program.

‘All of a sudden, somebody tapped me on my shoulder, I turned around and two girls were smiling at me … they asked me to do a survey about my faith,’ she said. 

Amy was 22 at that time in 2014 and had a growing interest in Christianity. The chance encounter would change her life for the worst. 

‘I believed that this was a almost an elevated version of Christianity because that’s how they pitched it to me,’ she said.

Liz had just finished Year 12 when she was approached at the Canberra Centre and thought it ‘sounded really fun and exciting’.

‘I was on a gap year, so I was looking to travel, I was working part-time, and I was also thinking about what I was going do with my life. 

‘I was in a really good position to be susceptible to psychological coercion, and they definitely took advantage of that.’

The young women attended bible study classes and lecturers and eventually moved into cult houses in Australia, where their lives were strictly controlled, including getting up at 2am every day to pray to JMS. 

In time, their physical and mental resistance was worn away and the people they thought of as friends told them they were ‘faith stars’.

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