‘Abuse cult’ priest received sexual massages ‘to relieve tension headaches’

Head of evangelical church movement from the 80s and 90s denies offences

Gabriella Swerling

Religious Affairs Editor

Telegraph 

August 4,  2025

A former priest accused of running an abusive cult received sexual massages to relieve “terrible tension headaches”, a court has heard.

Chris Brain, 68, led a group in the 1980s and 1990s in Sheffield called the Nine O’Clock Service (NOS), and was viewed by his alleged victims as a God-like “prophet” whom they “worshipped”.

The evangelical church movement drew crowds of hundreds of young people enticed by its “visually stunning” multimedia services featuring acid house rave music every Sunday at 9pm.

Mr Brain, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, is standing trial accused of committing sexual offences against 13 women. He denies one count of rape and 36 counts of indecent assault between 1981 and 1995.

At the opening of the trial in July, Tim Clark KC, prosecuting, told the court that Mr Brain ran “a cult”, surrounded by beautiful, lingerie-wearing women known as the “Lycra Nuns”, or “Lycra Lovelies”.

He said that Mr Brain used his position to abuse a “staggering number of women”.

Many of his victims were part of a “homebase team” tasked with cooking and cleaning for Mr Brain, as well as “putting him to bed” and giving him massages, which the court heard would often end in unsolicited groping.

Giving evidence at Inner London Crown Court on Monday, Mr Brain said he received back massages from a number of women in NOS.

Asked by defence counsel Iain Simkin KC how the massages began, he told the court that “it started off because I had terrible tension headaches”.

He referenced one member of the “homebase team” who gave him massages once or twice a week “and she could tell by touching me what the problem was”.

Mr Brain gestured to the court, lifting his arms above his head to show where he was in discomfort and why he required massaging.

“It was quite severe, I remember coming home and having to lie on the bed with my face on the pillow because the pain was so bad,” he said.

Asked whether there were occasions when the massages would develop into some form of sexual touching, Mr Brain replied: “With very close friends, it may edge towards that, but both parties knew it shouldn’t go there so one of us would pull back again and cool down.

“And we are talking about relationships over years and years… It worked having closeness with friends without having to involve close sexual contact, and of course, I was married.

He added: “With some of my closest friends it would be kissing sometimes, occasionally massaging, stroking. Anything more than that we would back off.”

‘Natural ecstasy’

Mr Brain told the court that NOS was “an evolving experiment” around at the “peak of the rave boom” and embraced “club culture” by creating “a natural ecstasy”.

As part of the “new New Age”, he added that there was a very laissez faire environment regarding “positive sexuality” as well as encouragement of “tantric celibacy”.

“It was normal to be physical,” he told the court. “This was the mid-80s early ’90s,” he said, adding that leggings and tight clothes were “the fashion”.

Regarding the clothes worn by female NOS members at the time, and asked if he prescribed the dress code for the “Lycra Lovelies”, Mr Brain responded: “All these people are completely clued-up and want to wear fashion.

“This is the mid-80s, everybody was obsessed with fashion and what they wore, it was a constant topic of conversation, but that does not mean I was obsessed with what people wore.”

Mr Simkin asked: “Looking back, do you accept you were some form of inspirational character?”

“That’s my thing, enthusiasm and ideas,” Mr Brain replied.

Jurors have previously heard how Mr Brain had his ordination licence “fast-tracked” in 1991 because Church of England officials viewed his organisation as “a success story”.

NOS evolved from holding services at St Thomas’s Church in the Crookes area of the city, before expanding as it grew increasingly popular to a larger premises at Ponds Forge in the city centre. It collapsed in 1995 amid accusations of a sex scandal.

Over the past five weeks, his alleged victims have given evidence describing NOS as full of “brainwashing”, “grooming”, “mind games” and abuse.

They claimed he told them that they “can’t be spiritual without being sexual”. The trial continues.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/04/abuse-cult-priest-sexual-massages-relieve-headaches-trial/

How Satanist Pedophile Groups Strategize To Groom Kids, Avoid Detection On Popular Chat Site

Hudson Crozier

Daily Caller News Foundation.

March 15, 2025

Online Satanist networks targeting children for sexual abuse keep gravitating toward a gaming site that has pledged to crack down on them, according to documents and interviews obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Predatory Satanists are increasingly appearing on platforms popular with young people by the dozens, prompting attention from law enforcement and lawmakers who question the efficacy of online safety policies. The DCNF obtained screenshots of one such band of users on Discord who talked about having a sexual interest in minors, where to find “groomable victims” and how to avoid getting banned.

Discord, an online messaging platform, said in an email that the users’ accounts and chat rooms “were proactively detected and removed” on Feb. 21, meaning the chats were active for at least four days. “The horrific actions of these groups have no place on Discord or in society,” a spokesperson said.

“Discord is committed to providing a safe and secure online environment for all users, and we are taking decisive actions to address harmful content on our platform and to find and remove the users who create such content,” the spokesperson continued. “We are continuously working to improve these measures, and, where appropriate and permitted by law, Discord aims to collaborate with the FBI and law enforcement.”

‘Tempel Ov Love’

Discord has long dealt with safety concerns due to its design of allowing users as young as thirteen — with parental permission — to join private “servers” comprised of one or more chat rooms for group messaging and audio calls, often with strangers. Discord servers are spaces that users create with “text and voice channels” while making their own rules for them, the platform’s website says.

The DCNF obtained images from Feb. 19 and 20 of “Tempel Ov Love,” a Discord server with 26 users and a logo resembling that of “Tempel Ov Blood,” a Satanic, neo-Nazi occult group. Tempel Ov Blood glorifies child exploitation and encourages adherents to commit terrorist attacks. Users in the Discord server discussed how they might find “preys” in other online communities on platforms they did not specify.

Posts and profiles from the server displayed symbols of movements such as “764,” which the Department of Justice (DOJ) calls a global “terror network.” Members of 764 typically groom children in online forums full of violent content and pornography and extort them into harming themselves, according to the DOJ.

An FBI bulletin from March 6 warned the public of a “sharp increase” in 764’s activities, saying the predators operate through “social media sites, gaming platforms, and mobile applications commonly used by young people.” The agency said the 764 network and others coerce “victims as young as 9 years old” to make self-harm videos or sexual content of themselves, carve the names of their abusers into their bodies and even “live-stream their own suicide for the network’s entertainment.”

A symbol denoting the Satanic group 764 is displayed in a Discord server on Feb. 20, 2025.

The 764 predators may move between web platforms and change the name of their movement, but “the core goals and membership remain consistent,” the DOJ previously said.

“These groups are … full of femboys and women with mental health issues,” a Discord user said about other online networks, “Joy of Satan” or “JoS” and “Order of Nine Angles.”

“Actually sounds like the HQ of preys,” another replied — before saying, “so many groomable victims.”

“Everyone there would be so easy to manipulate and mindbreak,” the first user said.

The same two users discussed one underage girl “in the JoS forums who is a minor foid with autism,” using “foid” as derogatory internet slang for a female. One of them said she “is also brain damaged for drug abuse.”

The other user replied, “even more groom[able]” and asked, “Is she good looking?”

The user who first mentioned the girl later said, “I told the foid to show me her boobs and she ghosted me … she probably [reported] me.” Someone else then congratulated that person as the “top groomer” in the chat.

A user in a Satanist Discord server brags about soliciting a minor for sexual material of herself in a chat message on Feb. 19, 2025.

Another post from an unrelated conversation reads, “I would fuck a guy but only if he was good-looking and about the same age as me or a minor.”

Several past and ongoing prosecutions of child abuse cult members have shown some of them using Discord, a platform normally meant for playing video games while talking to friends. They also congregate on other platforms, sparking pledges from companies to crack down on the predatory networks, Wired and the Washington Post reported. An unnamed spokesperson for Discord also told Wired that it closely works with the FBI and law enforcement and that taking down 764 is a top priority.

In one recent case, 764 member Jairo Tinajero pleaded guilty to producing child pornography, racketeering and other federal charges on Feb. 11. Tinajero convinced a minor to send nude pictures of herself through Discord and Telegram, then threatened to show them to her family if she didn’t send him more, a plea agreement says.

Tinajero was also in “an online chatroom” on an unnamed platform that “directed a female who Tinajero and others believed was as young as 12 years old to repeatedly cut herself with a knife,” the document says.

Telegram said in December that it had partnered with the Internet Watch Foundation in December to “continue to effectively delete child abuse materials” and maintains what it calls “a zero-tolerance policy.”

Followers of 764 and similar groups work together toward “destroying civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of youth,” according to prosecutors in Tinajero’s case. A user in the Tempel Ov Love Discord server appeared to take inspiration from 764 cultist Angel Almedia, whom the DOJ charged with exploiting minors in 2021.

A Discord user posts an image of 764 member Angel Almeida on Feb. 19, 2025.

Users also touched on how other Satanists they knew of were “boring” for supposedly being “against pedos,” calling it “sad.”

‘Severe Risks’

A majority of “enforcement actions” Discord takes against accounts and servers are for child safety, self-harm concerns and violent extremism, a 2024 company report says. But employees still “aren’t doing enough at all,” said Becca Spinks, a firearms instructor who has gained notoriety by writing about Satanic predator networks in her spare time.

“Discord makes it ridiculously difficult for investigators like myself to report entire servers for abuse,” Spinks told the DCNF.

The quickest option for users on any device to report illegal activity is clicking a “report message” button on individual posts. Spinks and her research partner, who goes by the name “Paco” online, said Discord users they’ve observed easily evade this system. Paco belongs to a small team of researchers with Spinks and asked not to be named to avoid threats from the Satanic extremist groups. (RELATED: Transgender Teen’s Alleged Shooting Plot Is Latest Linked To Popular Chat Platform)

Paco and Spinks said some groups on Discord often “spam” child pornography in a server together and quickly delete posts before someone can click the report button.

“What people will do is they’ll record the spam and then screenshot, download … take whatever they want, and then leave the server, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Paco told the DCNF in a phone interview.

Paco claimed to have seen this happen in a past Discord server, describing a flood of content containing “gore, beastiality, obviously child pornography, self-harm” and animal abuse material or “animal crush.”

“It was the worst shit you could possibly imagine,” he said.

Paco said he reported that server anonymously to the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children because users were deleting posts too fast for him to report them one by one.

“It’s not an effective method and the fact that it hasn’t been fixed is frankly negligent,” Paco told the DCNF.

Discord has a “Report Server” button in its mobile app, but not for the desktop version. Spinks and Paco said they were not aware of the feature and were frustrated that restricting it to the mobile app creates another hurdle for reporting pedophiles.

Accounts on X, formerly Twitter, helped spread an invite link to the Tempel Ov Love Discord server as early as Feb. 17, with one account later deleting its post, the DCNF observed.

Users in the comments section of one of the X posts suggested ways to evade Discord bans: making alternate accounts, creating VPNs, using a program that creates temporary phone numbers and using an encrypted email service. One person inside the server told others to “delete anything that’s unsafe [or] edgy after like a minute.”

X’s CEO testified to lawmakers in January 2024 that fighting “child sexual exploitation” is “our top priority” during a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation of tech companies. Discord told the committee that it is relying on AI software to detect such content.

Discord said “all [child sex abuse material] reports are reviewed by humans” in comments to the DCNF.

Discord also removed a button on its website in 2023 that allowed anyone to file written reports directly to the trust and safety team, archived webpages show. The company told the DCNF that it did so because the “report” buttons others have complained about make the process “easier and faster.”

“The root of the problem is that Discord systematically fails to prioritize safeguarding on its platform — it fails to effectively, proactively identify abuse networks or activities, and it fails to protect minors on the platform as well,” Haley McNamara, Vice President at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), told the DCNF. “The platform is extremely popular with children, but we highly recommend that minors avoid Discord given the platform’s severe risks.”

“We have recommended that Discord start by defaulting all minors’ accounts to the highest level of safety and privacy available,” McNamara said. She has previously advised federal agencies on combating sexual exploitation.

Paco told the DCNF that parents must “strictly” monitor their kids’ internet activity “every day” to protect them from groups whose methods continue to evolve.

“I have been added, unadded, blocked, unblocked, loved and hated, but never forgotten,” reads a profile from the Tempel Ov Love server.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

https://dailycaller.com/2025/03/15/satanist-pedophilia-groups-on-popular-chat-site-evade-bans-brag-about-grooming-kids/

Pedophile cult leader William Kamm granted bail

A pedophile cult leader who sexually abused two teenage followers has scored a victory in the state’s highest court after he was arrested last month.

News.com.au
Adelaide Lang
NCA NewsWire
June 22, 2023

A pedophile cult leader who sexually abused two teenage followers will be allowed to live in the community after he allegedly used the internet to communicate with his followers.

William Kamm, 73, has served two jail sentences totalling more than 10 years for the sexual assault of two 15-year-old girls between 1993 and 1995 at the cult property near Nowra.

The self-proclaimed leader of the “Order of St Charbel”, who calls himself “Little Pebble”, preyed on the two female cult followers.

He told the teens they would be among his 12 “queens” and 72 “princesses” who would help him repopulate a “royal dynasty” after the second coming of Jesus.

The convicted pedophile was released on parole in 2014, but his freedom came with strict conditions.

The NSW government argued he was at high risk of reoffending and his movements should be restricted under a three year monitoring order, which was granted by the Supreme Court.

The disgraced religious figure was taken back into custody last month after he allegedly breached the court orders for the second time.

Police arrested him on May 3 after he allegedly accessed a Wordpress blog and deleted his browser history.

He was charged with four counts of failing to comply with an extended supervision order and failed in his initial bid for bail.

On Thursday, he faced the Supreme Court via audiovisual link wearing a prison-issued green tracksuit and thick glasses to ask to be released after seven weeks behind bars.

His barrister Peter Lange argued there were “significant weaknesses” in the allegations laid against the cult leader.

The court was told Kamm was accused of employing incognito mode while using an internet browser, which allowed him to search the internet without leaving a trace of his identity.

Under his strict supervision order, he is prohibited from masking his identity or deleting any data that reveals his search history.

His lawyer claimed the charges were “ultimately doomed to fail” due to technical deficiencies and ambiguous wording.

Police allege the apocalyptic prophet also emailed the St Charbel bishop to direct him to publish a prayer on the cult website.

Posting on the Wordpress-hosted website through a third party would breach the court order not to access encrypted sites, the court was told.

However, Mr Lange said it would be difficult to show that was Kamm’s intention in sending the email.

He argued that his client should be released on bail because the supervision order mandated a higher level of monitoring than he was receiving while in jail.

“Paradoxically, the community would be put at greater risk if the applicant were remanded in custody,” the defence barrister said.

He maintained that any risk to the community could be mitigated by prohibiting Kamm from possessing a smartphone or any device that would access the internet.

“It’s really the desire of the applicant to access the internet which is at the root of the offences which are alleged against him,” he said.

“If that is reduced, that would eliminate the risk of him (breaching) his bail.”

The prosecution agreed the proposal would “adequately address” concerns about Kamm’s release.

Justice Peter Garling opined the case against Kamm was “not an overwhelmingly strong one”.

He said removing the cult leader’s access to the internet would alleviate the risk of him breaching his order or committing further crimes in the vein of his convictions.

Justice Garling granted bail and directed that Kamm obtain a mobile without internet capability.

The court was told the ageing doomsday prophet would be subject to the supervision order until April 2025.

He admitted to breaching the strict conditions of his supervision order for the first time in November 2022. He had spent more than a year behind bars as a result of the breach.

Kamm ran the Order of St Charbel cult on the NSW south coast until 2005 when he was jailed for sexually abusing an underage follower.

The fringe religious sect was founded in the 1990s and centred on his claims he could communicate directly with God and the Virgin Mary.

Under his recent bail conditions, Kamm will not be allowed to resume living at the cult commune in West Cambewarra.

He has been ordered to reside at an address in Sydney and return to court on July 11 over the alleged breaches of the supervision order.

 

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/paedophile-cult-leader-william-kamm-granted-bail/news-story/e88de73c838a01d6e4e5807c81670e2b

 

What life was really like inside the doomsday cult run by the paedophile known as 'Little Pebble'

Tara Brown
9Now - Nine
February 27, 2023


His devotees call him Little Pebble; his victims know him as a paedophile.

William Costellia Kamm is the self-appointed leader of a notorious doomsday cult that formed its headquarters in 1987, based in a secure compound in Cambewarra, just outside Nowra on the NSW South Coast.

At its height, thousands of pilgrims from around the world travelled to the bush setting for a spiritual experience like no other.

On the 13th day of each month, the Virgin Mary would appear to William - her apparition only visible to him - and he would pass on her messages and warnings to the gathered and devout crowd.

Watch full interview here on 9Now

He declared his compound the Holy Ground, a new promised land for his followers for when the apocalyptic second coming of Christ would wipe out most of mankind.

At the time, Kamm was married and had four children but unknown to his wife, this self-proclaimed Messiah was planning on creating a royal harem, filled with 12 queens and 72 princesses - 84 mystical spouses to bear his children to repopulate the earth.

Little Pebble claimed God chose who his brides would be but as Detective Chief Inspector Peter Yeomans from the State Crime Command puts it, it was Kamm who did all the grooming, and his preference was under-age girls.

"He was using religion in such a way that just split families. So, it was just awful and it continued for many many years. I see it as grooming with the families to get to these children and it's just terrible," he says.

In the Hinrichs family, Kamm found the perfect target. He discovered them on one of his many pilgrimages to Europe where he would drum up business by preaching his particularly conservative and fringe brand of Catholicism, for which he would ultimately be excommunicated by the Church.

Amongst the faithful in Munich, disaffected by the so-called modernisation of the Catholic Church, Kamm found Ingrid Hinrichs and her family of pretty blonde daughters.

This struggling family had already suffered unspeakable abuse. In the attentive Kamm, they believed they had found a benevolent saviour.

For the next few years, flying between Australia and Germany, Kamm was devoted to infiltrating the family, as daughter Stefanie Hinrichs remembers.

"We weren't a wealthy family. So he took us places and it was like, 'Goodness this man is spoiling us'," she says.

Stefanie was just eight or nine at the time. Her older sister, Bettina, was 15 or 16. Kamm was then 41.

"Eventually, when he came back to Germany, he would stay in our little apartment and sleep with my older sister, because at that point it was, 'she's going to be my wife' ... and in the mornings, William would tell (me) to get under the blankets with them both, and at the time I didn't think anything of it," Stefanie recalls.

"It was playful but now when I think about it, it just kind of makes me sick."

When Bettina was 17, Kamm and she celebrated a "mystical" marriage ceremony in Germany before moving to Australia to live in the cult compound in Nowra. Bettina was already pregnant with the first of their six children.

For a supposed holy man, Kamm was surprisingly handy with a ready-made lie or two.

He had told Bettina God had chosen her to be his new wife and mother to his existing four children because his current wife, Ann, would die in the next month or so. Until then he wanted Bettina to pretend she was the Kamm family's new nanny.

That was 1991. Ann saw through the nanny ruse, left Kamm and moved out of the cult with the couple's four children. Happily, she is still alive today.

The rest of the Hinrichs family moved to the cult headquarters the following year, believing they were relocating to heaven on earth.

As Stefanie revealed to 60 Minutes, the move marked the end of her childhood in the most disturbing way.

When she was just 13, Kamm claimed the Virgin Mary had selected her to be one of his new queens.

At first he promised their children would be conceived through immaculate conception - a heaven-sent gift in more ways than one for the young teenager. But very soon after, the Virgin Mary changed her mind and wanted Stefanie to conceive in the "natural" way.

Stefanie was horrified God wanted her to have sex with her sister's husband.

As she was urged to do by Kamm, Stefanie wrote all her fears and secret pleadings to the Virgin Mary in her diary.

It was a master stroke in manipulation. Kamm, pretending to be the Virgin Mary, wrote back, effectively telling the desperate girl there was no way out.

The diaries are filled with anguish and confusion.

A young girl, threatened with damnation, wanting to please God and the Virgin Mary but desperately trying to escape the clutches of her lecherous brother-in-law.

It was a battle Stefanie ultimately won when, some years later as an adult, she finally reported Kamm to police, leading to his conviction and jailing.

Perhaps it was divine intervention but it was her writings as a child, made at the urging of Kamm, that gave police the evidence they needed to nab him.



https://9now.nine.com.au/60-minutes/what-life-was-really-like-inside-the-doomsday-cult-run-by-the-paedophile-known-as-little-pebble/54ff2eee-c0b3-4ca1-8c70-6fcc04ff0a2c

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE STABLES

Olivia Carville
Bloomberg
March 10, 2022

"As prominent equestrians are banned for sexual abuse and even arrested, some traditionalists are taking aim at the Olympic watchdog created to protect young athletes.

“I feel like people are looking at me,” Maggie Kehring whispers to her mother as they walk across a dirt track at Desert International Horse Park in Thermal, Calif. The braided manes of the show horses, the chic white breeches of the riders, and the sweaty glasses of flavored iced tea belie the tension in the air. It’s early November, and Kehring, a 19-year-old equestrian who’s represented the U.S. in international competition, is making her first appearance at a West Coast show since the arrest of her coach, Rich Fellers, five months earlier. She’d accused Fellers, a former Olympic rider, of sexual abuse, claiming he groomed her into a relationship while she was training at his show jumping stable near Portland, Ore."

" ... [T]he U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent entity established by Congress in 2017 to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct in Olympic sports and levy sanctions based on its findings. Created in response to revelations that athletes had been sexually abused for decades by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, the center can look into harassment, abuse, and any sexual relationship between a coach and a student under the age of 20. But it couldn’t take action in Kehring’s case without her consent, and she didn’t trust SafeSport.

In recent years, SafeSport has banned some of the U.S.’s top horsemen for sexual misconduct. The decisions have torn the rich and powerful equestrian community apart, with many people choosing to stand by their heroes and challenging the center’s processes. They accuse SafeSport of conducting witch hunts and labeling coaches guilty until proven innocent."


https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-olympic-equestrian-sexual-abuse-safesport/

Student's dad ran sex cult at posh N.Y. college: Cops

His co-accused says she too is a victim and was "brainwashed."

Brad Hunter
Toronto Sun
February 11, 2022

The accused leader of a school girl sex cult at a posh American college has lost his bid to get new lawyers.

Accusers of Lawrence Ray, 62, said any delay in his sex-trafficking trial would create more trauma for the alleged victims, the New York Daily News reported.

His trial is slated to begin on March 9.

According to the News, Ray is accused of targeting his daughter's college friends using extortion, sex trafficking, forced labour, money laundering, assault and obstruction of justice to keep them under his influence. The women were students at ritzy Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, N.Y.

"Mr. Ray has had a grip on Jane Doe 2′s life, and she wants relief from that grip," said lawyer Brooke Cucinella. "She is more exhausted and anxious than she's ever been in her life. She can't work. She can't socialize. She feels that her life has come to a standstill."

His lawyers said the legal switch was not Ray's fault but a judge decided otherwise.

Cops say this Jeffrey Epstein wannabe was aided and abetted by his own Ghislaine Maxwell in the shape of former student Isabella Pollok, 30.

According to People, Pollok is charged with one count each of extortion conspiracy, sex-trafficking conspiracy, racketeering conspiracy, and money laundering.

Court documents say Pollock and Ray allegedly "attempted to gain the trust of the victims before psychologically manipulating and controlling them for the success and furtherance of the group's ideology and the financial gain of its members."

The charges were a result of a bombshell New York magazine report that detailed how Ray moved into his daughter's dorm room and used her friends to create a sex cult.

He isolated the victims from their families and allegedly extorted more than $1 million from them. One victim was forced into commercial sex acts and earned at least $500,000 that she then turned over to Ray.

Pollok fell under Ray's spell when she was 19 and coming off a bad breakup. Eventually, Ray moved into her dorm room at the college.

Her family claims she too is a victim and the Staten Island native says she was "brainwashed."

"I'm 19, I was having a lot of difficulty making sense of things, I wasn't in a good place," Pollok told the magazine. "He started to help me kind of process and make sense of a lot of things I just couldn't make sense of."

His daughter's college friends eventually moved into Ray's one-bedroom New York City apartment and recruited more young women.

Both Ray and Pollok have pleaded not guilty.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun

https://torontosun.com/news/world/cops-say-students-dad-ran-schoolgirl-sex-cult-at-posh-college

Accused Sarah Lawrence College sex cult leader declines COVID vaccine behind bars

STEPHEN REX BROWN

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

MARCH 22, 2021

The creep accused of leading a sex cult of Sarah Lawrence College students declined the COVID-19 vaccine despite being held in a Manhattan lockup that has been overrun with the virus.

Lawrence Ray’s decision to refuse the vaccine came up Monday during a hearing on his ability to prepare for trial while being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“The Government further understands that the defendant declined to receive the vaccination. This is corroborated by recent jail calls, in which the defendant described to others that he was not inclined to take the offered vaccine. If the defendant has declined the opportunity to reduce his risk exposure, his risk cannot then be wielded against the MCC to demand additional accommodations,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mollie Bracewell wrote in a Manhattan Federal Court letter.

Judge Lewis Liman denied Ray’s third bid for bail during the hearing, ruling that he remained a risk of flight and danger to the public. The difficulties Ray has viewing large amounts of video evidence and other materials with his attorneys at the jail did not change the judge’s calculus. Ray’s apparent unease with the COVID vaccine did not factor into Liman’s ruling.

“Different individuals may have different personal views about (the vaccine). I don’t think this is the forum for those issues to be debated,” Liman said.

MCC currently lists 18 staff and zero inmates as positive for coronavirus. The extent of the outbreak last year is widely believed to have been much more severe than numbers indicate due to a lack of testing.

Ray has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking, forced labor and other charges related to his alleged psychological and physical abuse of a small group of his own daughter’s college friends.

There is a hint of irony to Ray’s reluctance to be vaccinated against the virus that has killed 542,000 people nationwide. Prosecutors allege that Ray manipulated his followers in part through a bizarre obsession with his own health. He accused several people of poisoning him, including his own followers, prosecutors say.

In at least one episode he allegedly forced a follower to confess to the poisoning on video, creating material he could use should the follower consider leaving his orbit.

“This defendant has a history of fabricating illness,” prosecutor Danielle Sassoon wrote in filings last year.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-sarah-lawrence-sex-cult-case-covid-vaccine-20210322-eg6yow4l3zgz5mlpnos6sha5ai-story.html

Woman Accused Of Conspiring With Father In So-Called College Sex Cult Case

Zak Failla

Daily Voice  
February 3, 2021

A female cohort of the man accused of running a sex cult out of his daughter’s dorm at Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County is facing charges for her role in helping him run the scheme.

Staten Island resident Isabella Pollok, age 29, has been charged with racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, and extortion conspiracy for helping Lawrence Ray manipulate and groom the college students, who the convicted felon met after moving into his daughter’s on-campus room in 2010.

“Ray, with the assistance of Pollok and others, subjected the victims to sexual and psychological manipulation and physical abuse,” the indictment against Ray and Pollok states.

It is alleged that Pollok and Ray recorded their victims falsely confessing to poisoning the latter, which was later used as blackmail to extort them into providing cash or free sexual labor.

The pair also reportedly netted approximately $2 million in two years by forcing one of the women into prostitution in New York.

Using a recorded false confession, they allegedly forced the victim, “to engage in commercial sex acts for the Enterprise’s financial benefit in New York City and elsewhere,” the indictment states.

Pollok was released on $100,000 bail and is scheduled to appear back in court at a later date. Ray is being held without bail pending his trial. He previously pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/nassau/news/woman-accused-of-conspiring-with-father-in-so-called-college-sex-cult-case/802636/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/21-22/2020 (Love has Won, Patricia Hearst, SLA, Brainwashing, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Legal, Religious Freedom, Predatory Alienation, Unification Church, Proud Boys)

Love has Won, Patricia Hearst, SLA, Brainwashing, Jehovah's Witnesses, Legal, Religious Freedom, Predatory Alienation, Unification Church, Proud Boys

Dr. Phil: My Sister Is Running A Cult With A Bunch Of Followers,' Woman Claims; Sister Denies Accusation

"Sisters Chelsea and Tara say that growing up, their sister Amy was a sweet girl who got good grades. Then, by her early 20s, she was married three times and had three children with different dads. Their mother, Linda, says that's when Amy started to change.

"After her third child was born, Amy became very distant," Linda says.

Tara says that in 2006, Amy started acting strange. "She started calling herself 'Mother God,' and she believed that she was God," Tara says. "She claims that she is Jesus, Marilyn Monroe, Cleopatra, and different people in the past."

'My sister is running a cult with a bunch of followers in Hawaii," Chelsea claims, of the group Amy says is called Love Has Won. "She believes that she has been sent to save the world. All of Amy's followers refer to her as Mom or Mama. I believe that Amy is scamming all of her followers.'"

Nine Australia: The kidnapping and brainwashing of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst

"Around 9pm on February 4, 1974, Patricia Hearst, heiress to the greatest newspaper fortune in the US, answered a knock at her apartment door in Berkeley, California.

Three people ran into the room, attacking and tying up Patty's partner, Stephen Weed, before grabbing the 19-year-old, dragging her outside and pushing her into the boot of a car.

Neighbours reported seeing Patty struggling as she was carried away, blindfolded. They were powerless to help her as the kidnappers began firing shots into the street and around them to cover their escape.

And so began one of the strangest kidnappings in American history."

Deseret News: Utah high court weighs case of woman who says church made her listen to audio of her rape

"Lower courts say First Amendment prevents juries from considering case

"The Utah Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case alleging male leaders of a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation in Roy forced a 15-year-old girl to listen to a recording of a man raping her in 2008.

Lower courts found the church is not liable for the incident under protections of the First Amendment.

The state's high court has not yet made any ruling, but one justice made his views on the alleged conduct clear.

"The allegation here is a mental and emotional equivalent of waterboarding," Justice Deno Himonas said. "I've been a judge for a long time and a lawyer for a long time. I've never seen, in court, anything like this that's alleged."

The justice was responding to an attorney for the church who referenced the torture in defending her clients. Lawyer Kara Porter said she would draw a line at such physical harm. But she emphasized the woman in the case alleges intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Attorneys for the woman now in her late 20s argue that lower courts got it wrong when they ruled that the First Amendment shields the church from liability.

They say that Utah's highest court will set a dangerous precedent if it decides to grant such protection, effectively permitting other harmful conduct by religious organizations like sharing a person's medical records or repeatedly striking a child in the face."

Times Union: Commentary: Predatory alienation wrecks lives. Criminalize it.

" ... A 2017 New Jersey law defined predatory alienation and ordered a study of its effect on young adults and senior citizens, conducted by the Rutgers University School of Social Work. Bills now before both houses of the New Jersey Legislature call for the Predatory Alienation and Consensual Response Act to implement some of the study recommendations, but do not criminalize the destructive behavior.

Those who seem to have abandoned all reason to give up everything they have and everyone they know—and even to submit to servitude in an equatorial jungle or to branding in an upstate suburb—can't know they've been unduly influenced until they get away from their coercive handler. Yet once a son or daughter reaches the age of legal majority, parents lose all rights to rescue them from the psychological bondage imposed by the Keith Ranieres of the world, even if they have evidence of a pattern of deceptive control with no informed consent.

Meanwhile, victims of predatory alienation who say they're "estranged" from their family typically don't have to prove it to obtain subsidized housing or college financing. Such gaming of the social services system can render care providers unwitting accessories to predatory behavior."

Cultic Studies Review: On the Outside Looking In Growing Up in the Moonies

 "The author recounts her experiences as a child and young adult in the Unification Church ("the Moonies"). She discusses the enduring sense of not fitting in, which arose from her many years of travelling and being taken care of by people other than her parents (who were usually busy with missionary work) and stigmatized for being an "unblessed" child (not born to Moonie parents). During this prolonged conflict situation she vacillated between trying to "buy it" and rebelling. Leaving the group proved to be difficult because she discovered that she did not fit in "outside" either. Ultimately, however, she left the group permanently and began to build a new life."

Daily Beast: The Post-Election Proud Boys Meltdown Is Here, and It's Ugly

"The one-time leader of the Proud Boys' most paramilitary arm is now trying to rebrand the far-right streetfighting group as a more explicitly racist entity. It's the latest headache for an organization currently in denial about President Donald Trump's re-election loss.

Kyle "Based Stickman" Chapman was once the leader of the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights, essentially the frontline shock troops of the group known for taking part in brawls across the country. The Proud Boys' founder even said in 2017 that he considered naming Chapman president of the entire organization.

But that was while Trump was ascendant. Now, with the ultranationalist group scrambling in the wake of Trump's loss, Chapman is threatening a putsch to make the Proud Boys even more explicitly hateful, accusing the group's current leadership of being too soft.

Chapman, who did not return a request for comment,

"Due to the recent failure of Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio to conduct himself with honor and courage on the battlefield, it has been decided that I Kyle Chapman reassume my post as President of Proud Boys effective immediately," he wrote on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram. "Our logo will forthwith be changed to reflect the core beliefs of Proud Boy members. Going forward we will now be known as PROUD GOYS. The coup is complete. The grifting leaders have been deposed.

The announcement carried on in racist terms, claiming the organization's new direction would be more explicitly white supremacist, and (unlike the current group) opposed to gay members. (The proposed group's name, the Proud Goys, was a nod to anti-Semites' embrace of the word "goy," which is Yiddish for a non-Jewish person.)

Enrique Tarrio, the current head of the Proud Boys, told The Daily Beast the putsch wasn't going to succeed. And indeed, Chapman's standing in the group has fallen since its peak several years ago.

Still, his announcement hinted at recent upsets in Proud Boy circles, as well as a bigoted tendency that keeps surfacing among Proud Boys despite the group's insistence that they're not racist."

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Commentary: Predatory alienation wrecks lives. Criminalize it.

Mary Ann Castronovo Fusco

Times Union

November 10, 2020

Now that Keith Raniere of NXIVM — a multilevel marketing company that he ran for two decades outside Albany, and which encompassed a secret society of branded sex slaves — has been sentenced to life behind bars, what’s to stop another smooth-talking guru from spinning a web of lies to exploit others? Sadly nothing, for lawmakers have yet to connect the dots between high-profile displays of coercive control and the myriad ways undue influence infects ordinary lives.

On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones of the People’s Temple incited more than 900 members of his Guyana jungle colony to commit “revolutionary suicide” with a cyanide-laced fruit drink after the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan of California and three others—the largest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. A third of the victims were children. Books and docudramas recounted the gory details, but no policies against the malicious manipulation at the root of that tragedy were enacted.

In the decades between the Jonestown massacre and the NXIVM case, countless families have been emotionally eviscerated by the loss of loved ones to other coercive individuals and high-demand groups that managed to stay out of the headlines. Having no legal recourse, these bereft indirect victims often spend thousands on various advisers in hope of reconnecting, with no guarantee of success. Only if a prosecutable crime is committed will law enforcement step in, sometimes after irreparable harm has been done.

Laws skimming this area are piecemeal. In June, the California Senate unanimously passed a bill to include coercive control and isolation from friends, relatives, or other sources of support in its definition of domestic abuse. In 2014, California adopted a new definition for undue influence incorporating how elders can be manipulated by “excessive persuasion.” But as the NXIVM case shows, the targets of such unconscionable behavior can be of any age, anywhere.

Just as a thief can hack into a computer, a human trafficker, gang leader, abusive partner, con artist, or other predator can hack into a person’s mind—distorting memories into falsehoods and convincing them to cut off family and friends, rendering the isolated person dependent on the perpetrator. Key to maintaining control over the decisions and actions of another, such predatory alienation should be illegal.

A 2017 New Jersey law defined predatory alienation and ordered a study of its effect on young adults and senior citizens, conducted by the Rutgers University School of Social Work. Bills now before both houses of the New Jersey Legislature call for the Predatory Alienation and Consensual Response Act to implement some of the study recommendations, but do not criminalize the destructive behavior.

Those who seem to have abandoned all reason to give up everything they have and everyone they know—and even to submit to servitude in an equatorial jungle or to branding in an upstate suburb—can’t know they’ve been unduly influenced until they get away from their coercive handler. Yet once a son or daughter reaches the age of legal majority, parents lose all rights to rescue them from the psychological bondage imposed by the Keith Ranieres of the world, even if they have evidence of a pattern of deceptive control with no informed consent.

Meanwhile, victims of predatory alienation who say they’re “estranged” from their family typically don’t have to prove it to obtain subsidized housing or college financing. Such gaming of the social services system can render care providers unwitting accessories to predatory behavior.

Now that the gavel has come down on Keith Raniere, will lawmakers connect the dots among all manifestations of coercive control? Will they finally stop expecting those who get caught in the net of undue influence to extricate themselves, and start holding accountable those who cast it?

Mary Ann Castronovo Fusco is a co-founder of NJ Safe & Sound, a volunteer organization whose advocacy led New Jersey lawmakers to address predatory alienation.
http://www.njsafeandsound.org


https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Commentary-Predatory-alienation-wrecks-lives-15717919.php

Father charged in alleged sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College

Eyewitness News ABC7NY
February 11, 2020

"ALLEGED SEX CULT: The father of a former student at Sarah Lawrence College in New York has officially been charged in connection with an alleged sex cult he is accused of running out of his daughter's dorm room."

Student's father charged in alleged sex cult at New York college

Lucy Yang has more on the man charged in an alleged sex cult at Sarah Lawrence College.

WABC
February 12, 2020

The father of a former student at Sarah Lawrence College in New York has officially been charged in connection with an alleged sex cult he is accused of running out of his daughter's dorm room.

Lawrence Ray, a former friend of ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, is charged with sex trafficking, extortion, forced labor, and other offenses.

Over the course of the past decade, authorities say the now 60-year-old Ray laundered about $1 million from his victims -- mostly teens and young adults -- while subjecting them to "sexual and psychological manipulation and physical abuse," according to the indictment.

He allegedly extracted false confessions from at least seven of the young adults who came under his direction, using them for money, unpaid labor and even prostituted one for cash.

Ray was the best man at Kerik's 1998 wedding and apparently paid for much of the event, officials said. Eventually, though, Ray turned on his friend and provided information that led to the state and federal prosecutions against Kerik.

After he was released from a prison sentence for security fraud, Ray moved into his daughter's dorm room on the campus in Bronxville along with her male and female roommates.

Authorities say he began pseudo "therapy" sessions with some of them, purportedly to help with their psychological problems, and presented himself as a father figure.

Eventually, they moved into a one bedroom apartment on East 93rd Street on the Upper East Side.

During the alleged "therapy" sessions, he learned "intimate details about their private lives, vulnerabilities, and mental health struggles under the pretense of helping them. Ray alienated several of the victims from their parents and convinced several of the victims that they were 'broken' and in need of fixing by Ray," according to the indictment.

Any trivial mistake, like scratching a pan, was proof to Ray that the kids were trying to "sabotage" him and led to cruel punishments, the documents say.

Ray allegedly made up lies about them, and when they denied it, he would subject them to interrogations that included "sleep deprivation, psychological and sexual humiliation, verbal abuse, threats of physical violence, physical violence and threats of criminal legal action" that garnered false confessions.

He also took explicit photographs of some of them and videotaped their false confessions, according to the indictment.

When they couldn't pay for the damage he had convinced them that they caused, he allegedly ordered them to drain their parents' savings accounts of hundreds of thousands of dollars, open lines of credit, engage in real estate fraud and even earn money through prostitution.

Ray also set up an online domain business where he bought internet domain names and sold them at a profit, officials said, using the money bilked from his victims to buy the domain names.

He was arrested at his home in Piscataway, New Jersey, Tuesday morning and faces life in prison if convicted.

"The conduct alleged here is outrageous," FBI Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney said. "It makes you angry. If you're not angry, you don't have a soul."

The case was detailed extensively in 2019 by New York Magazine in a story entitled, "The Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence: What happened to the group of bright college students who fell under the sway of a classmate's father?" which U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said prompted the investigation.

Authorities are urging other possible victims to come forward by calling 800-CALL-FBI.

Sarah Lawrence College issued the following statement:

"Sarah Lawrence College has just learned of the indictment of a former parent in the Southern District of New York. The charges contained in the indictment are serious, wide-ranging, disturbing, and upsetting. As always the safety and well-being of our students and alumni is a priority for the College. In April 2019, New York Magazine published a range of accusations about this former parent. At that time, the College undertook an internal investigation regarding the specific activities alleged in the article to have occurred on our campus in 2011; the investigation did not substantiate those specific claims. We have not been contacted by the Southern District of New York, but will of course cooperate in their investigation to the full extent of the law if invited to do so."

https://abc7ny.com/students-father-charged-in-alleged-sex-cult-at-ny-college/5921035/ 

Human Predators

Opening Minds
October 2, 2019

"Jon and Sam Atack discuss what we mean by the term "human predator", and how to spot and avoid those people who hurt others for their own gain or even amusement."

https://youtu.be/GyYWCCsQViY