More than 30 burned during famous motivational speaker's hot coal walk

 June 24, 2016

 

More than 30 burned during famous motivational speaker's hot coal walk

CBS NEWS

 

Fire officials say more than 30 people attending a Tony Robbins event in Dallas have been treated for burns after the motivational speaker encouraged them to walk on hot coals.

Yesterday started with Robbins tweeting, "Good morning Dallas,Texas! Welcome to Unleash the Power Within!" to his 2.81 million followers. But for many, the day unleashed pain and injury.

Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans says five people were taken to a hospital Thursday night.

The hot coals were spread outside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, where Robbins' "Unleash the Power Within" seminar was taking place.

CBS Dallas reported that ambulances were lined up outside the convention center just after 11 p.m. Those who were more seriously injured were taken to the Parkland Hospital Burn Center.

Members of Dallas Fire-Rescue also asked that a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) bus be used as a staging-area for between 30 and 40 people who were less seriously hurt.

A statement issued by Robbins Research International said, in part:

"In Dallas tonight, someone not familiar with the fire walk observed the event and called 911 erroneously reporting hundreds of people requiring medical attention for severe burns. While we are grateful to the quick and robust response from Dallas emergency services, only 5 of 7,000 participants requested any examination beyond what was readily available on site. We are pleased to have completed another successful fire walk for 7,000 guests and look forward to the remainder of an outstanding weekend with them."

On tonyrobbins.com, the event schedule includes the "Turn Fear Into Power" portion of the event, detailing the importance of overcoming the roadblocks of fear. "Storm across a hot bed of coals," the web site encourages. "Once you start doing what you thought was impossible, you conquer the other fires of your life with ease."

Tad Schinke, the head trainer for the Robbins' organization, said the event went as planned.

"I've been doing events with Tony for 23 years, and while it may not look like that way, this was a successful event."

More than 7,000 people participated in the fire walk without injury, and the organization does plan ahead to help people who have some level of pain or discomfort as a result, Schinke said.

The coal-walking venue was set up on a parking lot to the north side of the convention center. The injured could be seen limping back to the convention center to seek treatment, according to people on the scene.

It's not the first time people have been hurt at Robbins' seminars. In July 2012, nearly two dozen people reported being burned after a fire-walking exercise at a Robbins' event in San Jose, California.

The event continues through Sunday.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-than-30-burned-during-famous-motivational-speakers-hot-coal-walk/

 

Fake monks? Buddhist leaders warn NYC tourists to be wary

MICHAEL BALSAMO
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 24, 2016

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Buddhist leaders are sounding the alarm to tourists: Beware the "fake monks."

Men in orange robes claiming to be Buddhist monks are approaching visitors to some of the city's most popular attractions, handing them shiny medallions and offering greetings of peace. They then hit them up for donations to help them build a temple in Thailand, and are persistent if their demands are refused.

"The problem seems to be increasing," said the Rev. TK Nakagaki, president of the Buddhist Council of New York, a group that represents nearly two dozen Buddhist temples. "They are very aggressive and hostile if you don't give them money."

His group has taken to the streets and social media to warn people that the men appear to have no affiliation to any Buddhist temple. "Please be aware," read one Facebook post, "this is a scam."

Along the popular High Line elevated park, one of the robed men handed a couple a shiny, gold-colored medallion and a plastic beaded bracelet. He then showed them photos of a planned temple and barked, "Ten dollars! Twenty dollars!" When they wouldn't give up cash, he snatched the trinkets back.

Other brightly robed men have been spotted pulling the same routine, albeit more successfully, in Times Square, not far from where costumed characters such as Elmo, Minnie Mouse and the Naked Cowboy take pictures with tourists for tips. Some of the monks were later seen handing wads of cash to another man waiting nearby.

The Associated Press tried to ask more than half-dozen of the men about their background and the temple they said the donations were being used to support. Each claimed to be a Buddhist monk collecting money for a temple in Thailand, but none could give its name or say where exactly it is located. All the men refused to give their names and ran off when pressed for answers.

The men first started appearing at the High Line, a New York City public park that's maintained by a private nonprofit group, about three years ago, said Robert Hammond, executive director of Friends of the High Line. But it "became excessive" in the past year, he said, with up to a dozen of the men accosting tourists at once and sometimes grabbing them to demand cash.

Panhandling on city streets isn't illegal in New York, as long as the person isn't acting aggressively. But the city's parks department has a rule that says it is unlawful to solicit money without a permit from the parks commissioner.

When asked about the men, New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver initially said, "I have no idea what you're talking about." He later said that if the men aren't abiding by the law, "the parks enforcement patrol will take care of it."

But parks department spokeswoman Crystal Howard said parks enforcement officers hadn't issued any summonses and the men's actions were "aggressive panhandling," a violation of state law that would be enforced by police. New York City police say that in the rare cases when someone has called 911 against the men, they were usually gone by the time officers arrived.

A few days after the AP inquired about the men on the High Line, several signs were posted there with photos of them, warning visitors not to give money to panhandlers.

Similarly robed men have been spotted in San Francisco, asking tourists to sign their "peace petition" before demanding cash. In China, authorities said the problem of "fake" monks begging in the streets prompted them to create an online registry of all actual Buddhist and Taoist sites.

In Times Square, the warnings came too late for tourist Rob Cardillo, of Pennsylvania. He gave a robed man $10 to help out with his temple, without ever asking anything about the temple or what the money would be used for.

"He might be fake, but it's the thought and I feel it," Cardillo said as he gripped the gold medallion.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5f8258ddcfe9421585af912c52187428/fake-monks-buddhist-leaders-warn-nyc-tourists-be-wary

Chile to preserve Colonia Dignidad cult archive

Chile to preserve Colonia Dignidad cult archive

24.06.2016

Deutsche Welle

 

Chilean authorities have declared the archive of the notorious Colonia Dignidad cult to be part of its "national heritage. " The German-led community had cooperated with the Pinochet regime.

 

Colonia Dignidad's documents spelling out the torture and other abuses that happened in the cult are important in investigating crimes of the Chilean military dictatorship, the National Monuments Council said while announcing its decision to preserve the archive.

The closed, cult-like community was set up in 1961 by former Nazi and convicted pedophile Paul Schäfer, ushering his decades-long rule over hundreds of mostly German expats. Schäfer and other cult members molested children and prevented adults from leaving the estate in central Chile.

After General Augusto Pinochet took power in Chile in 1973, the cult leadership started cooperating with the regime and offering their premises as a torture camp and a warehouse for weapons and poison gas.

Chile returned to democracy with Pinochet stepping down in 1990, leading to a public shift on the German enclave. Schäfer was forced to flee the country in 1997, but was arrested in 2005 and died in prison in 2010.

Berlin's regrets

Activists in Chile welcomed the decision to proclaim Colonia's extensive archive "national heritage." Margarita Romero, head of Association for Memory and Human Rights in Colonia Dignidad, called the decision a "milestone" in dealing with the past.

"Protecting the documents will undoubtedly open doors towards truth, justice and remembrance of crimes against humanity committed by Colonia Dignidad and the Chilean military dictatorship," she added.

Earlier this year, the German Foreign Ministry made its documents on the cult between 1986 and 1996available to the public. Berlin's top diplomat, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, stated on this occasion that Germany's representatives had done too little to help the victims.

However, Germany might still imprison the high-ranking cult member Hartmut Hopp, who served as Schäfer's right-hand man.

Hopp fled to Germany from Chile in 2011, after a court in the South American country found him guilty of 16 counts of aiding child abuse. As a German citizen, he is protected from extradition.

Earlier this month, prosecutors in Krefeld called for a German court to uphold Hopp's five-year sentence from Chile, saying the proceedings had corresponded with German judiciary standards. The court is due to announce its decision in the coming weeks.

The story of Colonia Dignidad was made into a movie staring Daniel Brühl and Ema Watson last year.

dj/sms (epd, dpa, EFE)

 

http://www.dw.com/en/chile-to-preserve-colonia-dignidad-cult-archive/a-19351898

 

Russia's Feud with Scientology Leads to Arrests

Russia’s Feud with Scientology Leads to Arrests

 

In latest crackdown, police raid Scientology offices and churches, citing suspicions of criminal business dealings.

                                 

23 June 2016

Transitions Online

 

The Russian branch of the Church of Scientology has denounced the raids carried out by the Russian police in its Moscow and St. Petersburg locations earlier this week, The Moscow Times reports.  

 

Ten church members were arrested in St. Petersburg on allegations of “illegal business activity.” And in Moscow, eyewitnesses said that police officers were not letting people in or out of the Scientology church.  

 

"It is a disease of our society when government agencies charged with protecting the people and enforcing the law, use the name of the law to persecute the practice of religion," the Church said in a statement on Wednesday, saying the authorities had violated the concept of religious freedom enshrined in Russian law.    

 

The arrests were made in the wake of a long-running conflict between the Russian government and the Russian Church of Scientology, which the authorities view as an extremist organization.

 

In November 2015 the Moscow City Court ruled to dissolve the Moscow church because the term “Scientology” is an American trademark, Kremlin-controlled RT reported. As a result, the ministry said that the group should be subjected to consumer protection laws.

 

“The representatives of the Church of Scientology themselves have created many legal conflicts by restricting the religious freedom through the use of trademarks,” the Ministry of Justice said, as quoted by RT. “So it turns out a commercial partnership was spreading the religion, while religion can only be spread by religious organizations.”

 

The Moscow branch of the church was given six months to appeal the decision or cease functioning. The group sent its appeal in January to the Russian Supreme Court, which dismissed it in May “without examination,” a court official told the RAPSI agency at the time.

 

Earlier in 2015 the Moscow church was searched under suspicion of illegal land sales. And last August authorities also confiscated cameras and microphones from inside the Moscow church that they said were several illegally installed.

 

The Russian Orthodox Church has also voiced its disdain for Scientology. In 1994, the Council of Russian Orthodox Bishops called Scientology a “pseudo-religion imported from the West.”  

 

"The Russian Orthodox Church is trying to root out its 'competitors' with the help of the authorities," says religious scholar Yekaterina Elbakyan (pictured), quoted by The Moscow Times in an article earlier this year on the crackdown. "By doing so, it is also making itself part of the government apparatus and making itself dependent on the state.”  

 

·        L. Ron Hubbard founded the Church of Scientology in 1952 based on the idea that people are immortal spiritual beings. Various celebrities, including Tom Cruise, have helped popularize the religion.    

 

·        In 2011 Hubbard’s books on Scientology were banned in Russia as extremist literature. At the time, the court stated in its ruling that the books "seek to form an isolated social group whose members are trained to perform their functions generally aimed against the rest of the world,” according to RIA Novosti.

·        In 2003 the government in Belarus released a list of 16 banned religious organizations including Scientology, Forum 18 reported.

·        In April authorities arrested a Russian woman, Ekaterina Zaborskikh for swindling luxury home-buyers and donating some of the money to the Scientology churches in Russia, The Daily Beast reported. She allegedly stole 130 million rubles ($2 million) between 2012 and 2014 by selling homes that her construction company never completed, according to Komsomolskaya Pravda.

 

·        In 2007 the St. Petersburg City Court dissolved the Center for Scientology amidst allegations that the organization was spying on its congregation, the Moscow Times reported.

Compiled by Elizabeth Potter

 

http://www.tol.org/client/article/26022-russia-scientology-arrests.html

 

Hasidic school targeted in recent raid reaches home-schooling agreement

 

Contract with English Montreal School Board aims to ensure students meet provincial curriculum requirements

By Benjamin Shingler, CBC News

Jun 22, 2016

A Hasidic school targeted in a youth protection raid earlier this month has entered into an agreement with the English Montreal School Board to ensure it meets the Education Ministry's requirements.

Some 70 students from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Rosemont–La-Petite-Patrie have signed home-schooling contracts with the EMSB, school board spokesman Mike Cohen confirmed on Wednesday.

The agreement comes three weeks after Montreal police and officials from Batshaw Youth and Family Centres descended on the school to question students and staff, in a move one community member described as "overkill."

The school doesn't follow the province's curriculum and isn't recognized by Quebec's Education Ministry.

On Wednesday, youth protection officials returned to the school, a nondescript building on the corner of Beaubien Street and Parc Avenue, to meet again with students and staff.

Hershber Hirsch, a board member at the school, which has no official name, said the community has always been willing to co-operate with the province.

"When they contacted us at the beginning of April we told them they could come in," Hirsch said.

This isn't the first school to sign such an agreement.

Last fall, the EMSB also signed home-schooling contracts with each of 236 parents from the Yeshivas Toras Moshe community in Outremont last fall.

Outremont's Beth Esther Academy also struck a deal with Montreal's largest French-language school board, the Commission scolaire de Montréal.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hasidic-quebec-home-schooling-1.3647398

 

JUN 22, 2016

 

Tom Cruise Opens $50 Million Scientology Movie And TV Studio Complex In Hollywood

Forbes

Alisha Grauso

CONTRIBUTOR

 

The old Hollywood studio system may be struggling as of late, but you wouldn’t know it by talking to Tom Cruise. The actor was on hand for the grand opening of the Church of Scientology’s massive studio complex in Hollywood last month with images and details finally being released this week via Daily Mail. Located right on Sunset Boulevard, the studio system took five years to renovate and cost approximately $50 million dollars.

 

Church leader David Miscavige aims to use the new complex as a vehicle for Scientology’s star celeb in Tom Cruise and return both Cruise and Scientology to the power and influence they held in Hollywood in the ’90s during the height of Cruise’s stardom. Earlier hits Days of Thunderand Far and Away were filmed partly at Scientology’s Hemet HQ, and the plan is to do more of the same but on a bigger scale now. Cruise plans to film his Hollywood projects at the Scientology complex, which is bigger and more complex than even that of Paramount Studios, Miscavige claims. Paramount famously parted ways with Cruise in 2006 when Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone canceled its contract with Cruise’s Cruise/Wagner production company after 14 years of working together.

 

But regardless of how anyone personally feels about Cruise or his religion, there’s no denying that he still has star power. While he’s not quite the huge blockbuster draw he used to be, he’s learned to stay in his lane of action movies, with franchises like Mission: Impossible and the smaller budget Jack Reacher franchise being profitable. Cruise is poised to extend the power of Scientology by controlling his own movies, using them as propaganda vehicles to reach a larger audience. Along with Cruise’s movies, a 24/7 Scientology “CNN News” is being planned for its followers – and the outside world.

Said Miscavige

Our uncorrupted communication line to the billions. Because as the saying goes, if you don’t write your own story, someone else will.  So, yes, we’re now going to be writing our story like no other religion in history. And it’s all going to happen right here from Scientology Media Productions…The average young adult spends ten hours of every day on the internet, and someone searches for ‘the meaning of life’ every five seconds, while someone else searches for answers about ‘spirituality’ six times per second. SMP will harness the power of every social media outlet imaginable to provide those answers. So for the 95 per cent of the world’s population that listens to the radio every day and the average viewer who spends some 40 hours glued to a TV every week, the obvious answer was: our own radio station, our own TV channel, and our own broadcasting facilities.

 

While the 15-20 heavily armed guards that patrolled the property during the official unveiling and private security inside the event seemed a rather extreme way of dealing with a small group of peaceful protesters outside, it was simply par for the course for the famously paranoid church. The money that flows through Scientology’s pockets is extensive, enough so that the complex is state of the art. Miscavige claims it will boast sound stages, creative suites, visual effects production areas, editing, audio recording and mixing, foreign language translation and dubbing, all connected by 27 miles of fiber optic cable. 

But there are skeptics out there, many of whom feel this grand project is simply another means for Scientology to make money. Many of the images released of the complex were simply CGI rendered concept images – despite the unveiling, most of the complex has yet to be finished. Mike Rinder, who had previously been the third highest-ranking member of the church but left in 2007, has been one of Scientology’s most outspoken critics ever since. Rinder was candid about the fact that he believes it is a false front for Scientology:

This is Scientology’s version of a cross between Paramount and Disneyland. The idea of this thing is not just feature movies, but TV ads, informational videos, TV programs. This is their platform to make their break in Hollywood. They don’t need this new base, so the question becomes why? It’s just a fundraising ploy, to buy real estate, to persuade people to give them money, and if they can come up with the concoction that this is the next great thing to tell the world about Scientology, then all the better. There’s ten of millions now being spent, but it will be just another empty building. It doesn’t matter what goes on there, it makes it look like they’re expanding, so [followers will think] they must be doing well.

Whether or not the complex will actually be utilized or whether it will sit empty, the truth is that either way, Scientology desperately needs to rebrand its image. It has had a very public from grace in the last decade, with more and more top officials and insiders leaving the church and blowing the lid off the shadier, disturbing practices of Scientology. While it reportedly has $8 billion in its reserves, it would be reasonable to believe it is in need of a huge recruiting push as those reserves will run dry if there are no incoming members to refill it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alishagrauso/2016/06/22/tom-cruise-opens-50-million-scientology-movie-and-tv-studio-complex-in-hollywood/#674ef28262af

 

Father of N.Y. teen killed in church beating pleads guilty

CTV News

The Associated Press 
Wednesday, June 22, 2016

UTICA, N.Y. -- The father of a 19-year-old beaten to death during a church counselling session pleaded guilty Wednesday to his role in the attack, describing how he whipped the teenager and a younger son with an electrical cord during a group assault that authorities have said went on for 14 hours over two days.

Bruce Leonard wobbled and cried and at times had to sit down during an appearance in Oneida County Court, where he pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree assault the day before he was to stand trial on a more serious murder charge.

His wife, Deborah Leonard, pleaded guilty to assault in December.

As part of his plea, Bruce Leonard, 66, will have to testify against the seven remaining defendants. They include his step-daughter and the church's leaders, who are awaiting trial for the session that killed Lucas Leonard and injured 17-year-old Christopher Leonard last October.

The victims were pummeled for hours in the torso and genitals. Lucas Leonard was pronounced dead at a hospital, where medical staff who first saw the bloodied teenager initially believed he had been shot.

Authorities have said the boys were being punished for considering leaving the secretive Word of Life Christian Church, in New Hartford, a family-run congregation that was largely a mystery to its neighbours and others.

In court Wednesday, Leonard acknowledged that a church member raised the idea that Lucas Leonard had molested children, but neither the father nor prosecutors confirmed such abuse took place. Police have said there is no evidence to support the claim.

Bruce Leonard said the idea of witchcraft also was raised during the beating. District Attorney Scott McNamara called the session "a modern-day witch trial."

The boys' half-sister, Sarah Ferguson, is scheduled to be tried on murder and other charges during a non-jury trial beginning Thursday. The other defendants are expected to be tried in September on varying counts of second-degree murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, assault and gang assault. They include pastor Tiffanie Irwin, who Deborah Leonard said was viewed as a prophet, Irwin's mother, Traci Irwin, and Tiffanie's brothers Joseph and Daniel Irwin. Mother and son church members, Linda and David Morey, also are charged. All have pleaded not guilty.

Bruce Leonard is expected to be sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison.

 

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/father-of-n-y-teen-killed-in-church-beating-pleads-guilty-1.2956854

 

Scientology Opens $50 Million Movie Studio in Hollywood

Breitbart News

by JEROME HUDSON

21 Jun 2016

 

The Church of Scientology has unveiled a massive new $50 million Scientology Media Productions movie and media studio complex on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where church leaders plan to spread their message to an even larger audience around the world.

 

“We’re now going to be writing our story like no other religion in history. And it’s all going to happen right here from Scientology Media Productions,” Scientology leader David Miscavige said at the May 28 groundbreaking event.

 

Miscavige says the media complex is meant to advance the church’s message in an unfiltered and unadulterated way.

“Such has been our quest,” he said. “And why this facility represents the final component of an interlocking system for our global Scientology communications.”

“The average young adult spends 10 hours of every day on the Internet, and someone searches for ‘the meaning of life’ every five seconds, while someone else searches for answers about ‘spirituality’ six times per second,” Miscavige said, adding that the new production studio “will harness the power of every social media outlet imaginable to provide those answers.”

The Church of Scientology purchased its new studio for a reported $45 million in April 2011 from non-commercial educational television station KCET.

The church completely restored the facility, furnishing it with state-of-the-art digital media capabilities.

KCET was the original studio where the church’s founder, science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, was asked to write screenplays for some of the greatest films of the 20th century, including The Secret of Treasure Island.

However, several former Church members have criticized the new production initiative, including Mike Rinder, who featured prominently in last year’s Alex Gibney-directed Scientology exposé Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.

 

Rinder believes his former church’s new media complex will be larger than the Paramount Pictures studio in Hollywood, but says it will serve as nothing more than a big shiny building that is part of a more elaborate scheme for the church to raise money for itself.

“This is Scientology’s version of a cross between Paramount and Disneyland,” Rinder said according to the Daily Mail. “The idea of this thing is not just feature movies, but TV ads, informational videos, TV programs. This is their platform to make their break in Hollywood.”

 

Scientology counts numerous celebrities among its adherents, including Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley.

“They don’t need this new base, so the question becomes why?” Rinder says. “It’s just a fundraising ploy, to buy real estate, to persuade people to give them money, and if they can come up with the concoction that this is the next great thing to tell the world about Scientology, then all the better.”

“There’s ten of millions now being spent, but it will be just another empty building,” he added. “It doesn’t matter what goes on there, it makes it look like they’re expanding, so [followers will think] they must be doing well.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2016/06/21/church-scientology-opens-50-million-media-production-complex-hollywood/

 

How the Polygamy Cult Will Hide Fugitive Leader Lyle Jeffs

Fugitive cult leader Lyle Jeffs may be hard to find: the FLDS cult and its network of safe houses has years of experience in hiding fugitives.

Samantha Allen
Daily Beast
June 21, 2016

It was only a matter of time before polygamous cult leader Lyle Jeffs ran away.

His imprisoned brother Warren Jeffs, the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), once spent months as a fugitive before police found him in 2006 traveling through Las Vegas in an Escalade full of wigs, cell phones, and sunglasses.

Now, Lyle, who has been handling the day-to-day affairs of the FLDS church since Warren went to jail for child sexual assault, is taking his turn on the lam.

In early June, Lyle Jeffs was released into house arrest to await trial on charges of food stamp fraud and money launderingthat federal investigators filed against FLDS leaders this February. As the Salt Lake Tribune reported, it took Jeffs less than two weeks to take off his GPS monitor and flee his Salt Lake City home. A warrant has been out for his arrest since Sunday.

The FBI is now hunting him down, just like they hunted his brother a decade ago. But private investigator, Prophet’s Prey author and FLDS expert Sam Brower believes it could be even harder for them to find Lyle than it was to find Warren.
“They learn from their mistakes,” he told The Daily Beast. “Warren was caught. They’re not going to make the same mistakes again with Lyle. It’s going to be that much more difficult.”
“Lyle Jeffs is not like a normal crook that, say, robs a gas station and takes off in an old, beat-up car and has little money and not much help,” Brower continued. “He has thousands of people who would die for him, unlimited money, and unlimited resources so he’s well set-up.”

Jeffs is one of 11 FLDS leaders and members who were charged in a food stamp scheme in the cult’s Short Creek community, which straddles the Utah-Arizona border. As part of the scheme, members were allegedly required to spend their food stamp stipends at two FLDS-owned stores and then donate everything they bought back to the church. In the process, church leaders, including Lyle Jeffs, allegedly raked in millions from the phony transactions.

Before Jeffs fled, the trial in this case was scheduled for October. Prosecutors and family members warned U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart that Jeffs should await the trial in detention because he was an extreme flight risk.

“Blame the judge for this,” Wallace Jeffs, one of Lyle’s relatives and a former FLDS member told the Tribune. “Everybody knew that he was going to do this. Everybody.”

“I’m not here to say ‘I told you so,’ but I did,” Lyle’s son Thomas told KSTU. “It was inevitable.”

Not only do the FLDS faithful already have experience hiding a high-profile fugitive, Lyle Jeffs himself helped Warren Jeffs flee from the FBI when he was on the Ten Most Wanted List in the mid-2000s.

“It was frustrating that the judge would even release him with the tons of evidence showing that he would run,” Brower told The Daily Beast.

Brower estimates that the polygamous cult, which split from the mainstream Mormon Church after 1890 in order to continue practicing plural marriage, now has about 10,000 members spread across the small Short Creek community and even smaller compounds in the Western United States, Mexico, and Canada. That gives Lyle Jeffs plenty of places to hide, if he even stays in one spot.
“He literally could be just about anywhere,” Brower said. “They have the resources. They can set up cargo containers, put bathrooms in them and really deck them out so they can pull somebody around all over the country.”

Jeffs’ family members seem to suspect he’s heading south of the border. Wallace Jeffs told the Tribune that Lyle is probably headed to Mexico or South America, where he owns a ranch, according to court filings from his ex-wife. But as Brower told The Daily Beast, Jeffs could just as easily flee to Canada. Back when Warren was on the run, Brower andUnder the Banner of Heaven author Jon Krakauer found unsecured stretches of the Canadian border with FLDS-owned property on the other side.

It’s also possible that Jeffs could stay in the United States and take advantage of the cult’s network of compounds and safe houses.

“They call them ‘places of refuge’ and they’re all over the country,” Brower said. “They’re not only set up, there are probably more now than when Warren was on the run.”

When Warren Jeffs fled from the FBI, his aiders and abettors used a sophisticated system of burner phones, radios, and church-owned vehicles to coordinate the cult leader’s movements. He traveled in disguise, wearing street clothes rather than the characteristic FLDS clothing. He even grew a beard, which is taboo in FLDS culture. When police finally found him in the Escalade, he was carrying $50,000 in cash.
The cult’s certainty that the apocalypse is nigh only helps them harbor fugitives. As documented in the film Prophet’s Prey, the Short Hill community is patrolled by FLDS security. And the cult’s South Dakota compound boasts a “scary-looking guard tower,” as one local paper described it.

“They spend a lot of time preparing for the calamities of the last days,” said Brower, “so they are very well prepared for [this].”

The FBI is hopefully prepared, too. They’ve already had a practice run capturing Warren Jeffs and, as the Tribune reported, there is a law enforcement task force focused on the FLDS that can pump Lyle’s former followers for information. Still, prosecutors say, it would have been much easier to keep him under lock and key than to waste resources on yet another costly FLDS manhunt.

Jeffs’ attorney successfully argued that keeping her client in detention until the October trial would have been a violation of his constitutional rights. The judge’s decision to release him into house arrest was baffling and infuriating for those who saw this coming a mile away.

“Why [the judge] would give deference to Lyle Jeffs is beyond me,” said an exasperated Brower. “I think it’s this thing in the back of judges’ minds that [FLDS] is some sort of religion.”

“They’re not a religion, they’re a crime syndicate,” he continued. “They’re a criminal organization that specializes in exploiting children and women. A religion doesn’t have every single member of its leadership in prison.”



http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/21/how-polygamist-cult-leader-lyle-jeffs-could-evade-the-fbi.html

Minnesota cult leader charged with 59 counts of child sex abuse

June 21, 2016
Fox News Latino


PINE CITY, MINN. (AP) – A judge set bail at $1.5 million Monday for a religious sect leader who's charged with sexually abusing girls at a secluded compound in rural Minnesota.

Victor Barnard, 54, made his first state court appearance since his extradition from Brazil. U.S. marshals delivered him to the Pine County Jail on Saturday.

Pine County prosecutors charged Barnard in April 2014 with 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct for allegedly having sexual relationships with two girls in his "Maidens Group" at his River Road Fellowship compound near Finlayson, about 90 miles north of Minneapolis.

The U.S. Marshals Service put him on its most wanted fugitives list, and authorities finally caught up with him in a Brazilian resort town in February 2015. Brazilian authorities said he had arrived in Brazil in March 2012.

Barnard looked haggard, thin and pale during the brief hearing as attorneys argued over the conditions of his bail.

Pine County Attorney Reese Frederickson argued for bail as high as $7 million, saying he'd received reports that Barnard's remaining followers were liquidating assets to try to free him. He said Barnard remains a flight risk.

But defense attorney Dave Risk said his client had already spent more than a year in prison in Brazil and had agreed to extradition. He said the prison stay "took quite a toll on him. His health has diminished significantly as a result."

Judge James Router set bail at $1.5 million with conditions including Barnard's having no contact with the two women he allegedly abused starting when they were girls, surrendering his passport and being monitored by GPS. Barnard could also go free with no conditions if he posts $3 million.

According to the criminal complaint, the two women told investigators they were among about 10 girls and young women who were chosen to live apart from their families in what was called the Shepherd's Camp. One alleged Barnard started abusing her when she was 13, continuing until she was 22. The other said she was abused between ages 12 and 20.

Investigators have said Barnard used religious coercion and intimidation to maintain his control over them. They've also said they believe Barnard abused other girls but were unable to get others to come forward.

Most of the counts against Barnard carry maximum sentences of 30 years in prison.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2016/06/21/minnesota-cult-leader-charged-with-5-counts-child-sex-abuse/

Polygamous sect leader Lyle Jeffs escapes house arrest

 

Let out of jail less than two weeks ago, Jeffs was awaiting trial for multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud

CBC.ca

The Associated Press

Jun 20, 2016

Polygamous sect leader Lyle Jeffs has fled home confinement in Salt Lake City, Utah, less than two weeks after he was let out of jail pending trial on charges in a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud scheme.

A warrant for Jeffs' arrest was issued Sunday afternoon after he took off sometime over the weekend, said U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch. Authorities aren't releasing details about how he escaped.

U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart released Jeffs from jail on June 9, after several previous requests were denied. Jeffs was ordered to wear a GPS monitor and stay in a Salt Lake County house, except for going to work, doctor's appointments and court hearings. He was also required to give up his passport.

In granting Jeffs' release, Stewart said the other 10 defendants in the fraud case who have been let out of jail have complied with the court's conditions. Stewart also acknowledged that Jeffs' jail time would be longer than expected since his trial has been pushed back to October.

Prosecutors objected to his release, calling Jeffs a flight risk.

They also warned that witnesses would clam up out of fear of reprisal from Jeffs, who runs day-to-day operations in the community on the Utah-Arizona border.

He is the brother of the sect's highest leader, Warren Jeffs, who is serving a life sentence in Texas after being convicted of sexually assaulting girls he considered brides.

Release initially denied

In April, Stewart sided with prosecutors in denying Lyle Jeffs' release. The judge wrote in that ruling that Lyle Jeffs couldn't be trusted to adhere to conditions of release because of his loyalty to his brother, plus a history of evading law enforcement by using aliases and concealing his whereabouts.

At the time he wrote that Lyle Jeffs travels with armed guards who are "willing to take extreme efforts to protect him."

Stewart didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jeffs' attorney, Kathryn Nester, was not immediately available for comment. She argued at the June 9 hearing that her client's constitutional rights would have been violated if was kept in jail until the trial.

The FBI, which is leading the effort to find Jeffs, asked the public to report any information about the 56-year-old's whereabouts.

Sam Brower, a private investigator who has researched the church for years, received a phone call from authorities Monday morning asking him to help get the word out and report any leads. Brower said he thinks Lyle Jeffs may still be in the region, and catchable.

Brower also said this proves prosecutors were right when they argued Lyle Jeffs was a flight risk.

"Why the court would ever think the guy in charge of this criminal organization would not run is beyond me," Brower said. "The world needs to stop thinking about them as a religious group."

Food stamp scam

Lyle Jeffs was arrested and indicted in February on charges of diverting at least $12 million worth of federal benefits.

Prosecutors say sect leaders instructed followers to buy products with their food stamp cards and give them to a church warehouse, where leaders decided how to distribute items to followers.

They say food stamps were also cashed at sect-owned stores without the users getting anything in return. The money was then diverted to front companies and used to pay thousands of dollars for a tractor, truck and other items, prosecutors say.

All the defendants have pleaded not guilty to fraud and money laundering charges.

Members of the sect, known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven. The group is an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism, which disavowed polygamy more than 100 years ago.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lyle-jeffs-polygamous-escape-1.3644699

 

Guatemalan ex-mayor charged in expulsion of Jewish sect

Official charged with abuse of authority, discrimination after 230 members of Lev Tahor forces out of village in 2014


The Times of Israel
BY JTA 

June 20, 2016

A court in Guatemala indicted the ex-mayor of a small town in the Central American nation for “participating in the expulsion of a religious community.”

Antonio Adolfo Perez y Perez of San Juan La Laguna was charged with abuse of authority and discrimination and sentenced to house arrest, the local newspaper Prensa Libre reported. He had lost his political immunity on Jan. 14 after he was not re-elected.

In 2014, some 230 members of the controversial ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor were forced out of the village following religiously tainted disputes with its Mayan residents, who are Roman Catholic. The local elders’ council voted against the Jewish group, which practices an austere form of Judaism. For example, members of the sect refused to greet or have physical contact with anyone outside their community.

“We felt intimidated by them in the streets. We thought they wanted to change our religion and customs,” a member of the elders’ council, Miguel Vasquez Cholotio, told Agence France Presse. “We need to conserve and preserve our culture.”

Rabbi Shalom Pelman, a leader of Guatemala’s small Chabad community, condemned the expulsion.

“This is not typical in the world I live in. Even in Iran, Jews are not expelled,” he told the media.

Lev Tahor had maintained a small presence in San Juan La Laguna, a village about 90 miles west of Guatemala City, for about six years, but it expanded considerably after a contingent arrived complaining of persecution by Canadian authorities. Tensions appear to have flared after the newcomers sought to impose its practices on the indigenous people.

Lev Tahor shuns technology and its female members wear black robes from head to toe, leaving only their faces exposed. The group was founded by an Israeli, Shlomo Helbrans, in the 1980s and rejects the State of Israel, saying the Jewish Promised Land can only be established by God, not men.

Guatemala is home to some 1,200 Jews in a population of 15 million.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/guatemalan-ex-mayor-charged-in-expulsion-of-jewish-sect/

Hundreds counter-protest Westboro Baptist demonstration in Orlando

By Arelis R. Hernández  June 18

Washington Post

ORLANDO — About 200 people blocked the main street in downtown Orlando to form a human chain to counteract the demonstrators from Westboro Baptist Church.

A handful of the church’s members raised their now iconic anti-gay signs across the street from St. James Catholic Cathedral, while more two dozen police officers stood between them and the rainbow-adorned assembly.

The human chain group formed organically through Facebook, after rumors surfaced that the group would demonstrate at several funerals of the victims of Sunday’s mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub. The funerals began Thursday, however, the church did not apply for permits until Friday with plans to picket on Saturday.

The amalgam of humanity who came out against Westboro included bikers, priests, young people, members of the LGBT community and locals carrying signs saying “God is love” and the motto the City Beautiful adopted in response to the massacre, “Orlando strong.”

Angel Gabriel Vasquez and his husband, Adam Vasquez, came to the counter-protest in downtown Orlando wearing a rainbow-colored Puerto Rican flag draped around their necks like a cape.

They live in Pennsylvania but flew into Orlando, their former home, Saturday night after watching the news coverage of the shooting massacre.

“This is where we grew up. This is where we matured as young gay men. And to be Puerto Rican, Latin night was one of our favorite nights,” Angel Vasquez said. “This is where our hearts is.

After hearing about the church’s plans on Facebook, the couple decided to join the counter-protest.

Westboro has “just a sick, twisted view. They push people away from Christian religion,” Adam Vasquez said.

For Angel Vasquez, the church’s actions are particularly maddening for him as a gay Christian, he said.

“God loves everyone,” he said. “He made me this way. I can’t help it. I tried to be normal, straight, but it’s who I am. It’s who I was made to be.”

Throughout the demonstration, “Amazing Grace” reverberated softly among the demonstrators who quietly sang in unison.

Soon, a line of “angels” mounted with wings constructed from PVC pipes and white sheets walked in front of the throng, saying nothing as the crowd cheered. The wings were the idea of the Orlando Shakespeare theater, which outfitted their volunteers with sheets wide enough to block view of the church members.

Just past 11 a.m., the Westboro church members left and retreated toward their vehicles, and the crowd roared. A large contingent of the counter-demonstrators drew in close into a huddle and chanted, “Orlando strong! Orlando strong!”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/18/hundreds-counter-protest-westboro-baptist-demonstration-in-orlando/?utm_term=.b9e615cdc34d

 

 

Cult leader Victor Barnard back in Minnesota to face charges

Extradited from Brazil, he is now in the Pine County jail.

By Liz Sawyer

Star Tribune
JUNE 18, 2016

Cult leader Victor Barnard has been extradited from Brazil and was booked into the Pine County jail on Saturday afternoon, authorities said.

Barnard, now 54, who led the River Road Fellowship near Finlayson, Minn., faces 59 counts of first- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct. He is accused of raping girls and young women from his isolated congregation, victims he called "maidens."

His accusers have said he twisted biblical passages to convince them that a sexual relationship with their pastor was just as much God's will as it was for King Solomon to have concubines.

Barnard fled to Brazil, was captured in February 2015 and had been imprisoned there ever since.

Even though that nation's Supreme Court had approved Barnard's extradition back to Minnesota, a dispute between Brazilian and U.S. authorities over any potential sentence delayed the move for several months. There had been concerns among U.S. authorities that the delay could last up to three years.

Barnard left his start-up community in 2010 under a cloud of suspicion about his behavior during his years at the head of the River Road Fellowship.

In 2012, two former followers approached the Pine County Sheriff's Office to report that he had begun a sexual relationship with them when they were 12 and 13 and that the abuse had continued for years.

The county charged Barnard in 2014, setting off an international manhunt. He was arrested in a Brazilian resort town, where he was sheltering with one of his former maidens — a follower from a wealthy Brazilian family.

After more than a year in jail, Barnard himself requested the extradition back to Minnesota, his attorney said.

Media in Brazil reported in November that Barnard was hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt from which he has apparently recovered.

Marsh Halberg, Barnard's defense attorney, said last month that one condition of the Brazilian court was that any potential sentence for Barnard in the United States not exceed 30 years, which is the maximum he would receive if prosecuted and convicted in that South American country.

Pine County Attorney Reese Frederickson said even if Barnard were convicted of only a fraction of the counts against him, he'd be looking at the prospect of living out his life in prison.

http://www.startribune.com/accused-cult-leader-victor-barnard-back-in-minnesota/383521071/