Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 164
Coercive Persuasion/Deprogramming
Unique “Cure” for Hate Crime Perpetrators Proposed
Criminal lawyer Alan Young suggests using coercive persuasion or deprogramming to
reform hate crime perpetrators. ―Just as some cancers require invasive surgery, the hate
crime needs intrusive measures. The usual out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach to modern
punishment just won't work in this case. For crimes of supreme stupidity we need Clockwork
Orange justice — strapping the hate criminal into a chair for an interminable period, and
keeping his eyes wide-open with metal clamps so he cannot escape from an onslaught of
cinematic imagery carefully designed to break his neurotic attachment to self-induced
intellectual impairment.
―In the context of hate crime, I do have some regrets that we have a constitutional
prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. I don't think coercive persuasion or
deprogramming is necessarily cruel, but as a state sanction it is unusual. However, if the
crime is unique the sanction should be also. Simply dishing out more prison time or a larger
fine is a dead-end. We need a punishment that can kick-start a brain.
―Regrettably, when it comes to punishment, our system rarely exhibits ingenuity, audacity
and courage.‖ (Alan Young, Toronto Star, Internet, 3/28/04. Young is a law professor,
criminal lawyer, and author of Justice Defiled: Perverts, Potheads, Serial Killers.)
Deeper Life Church
Accused of Exploiting the Indigent
San Antonio‘s Deeper Life Church, part of a Tampa, FL-based organization comprising 38
churches stretching from Michigan to New Mexico, is being investigated following allegations
that it closely controls and exploits homeless recruits, including children, especially in its
fundraising efforts.
A Deeper Life spokesman said recruits, whom he called volunteers, spend all of their time
memorizing the word of God, except when they‘re sleeping, or collecting money for the
church ―to help women and children.‖ Deeper Life calls itself a fund-raising entity rather
than a church, although it files returns to the IRS as if it were a church, which means local
authorities cannot investigate the organization‘s finances.
The Deeper Life founder is mail-order minister Melvin B. Jefferson, who trains the
church‘s pastors. Members live in rickety housing while Jefferson and his wife live in an
8,400 square foot home, fly a private jet, and own five cars, including a Bentley.
Marjorie Suggs, of SAMM Ministries, who has worked with former Deeper Life members,
says one family was evicted from church housing when parents refused to take their
children out of school for the yearly pilgrimage to Florida required of members. In 1997 and
1998, four church officials and the church corporation were found guilty in a $20,000-a-
month food stamp fraud case in Florida the church accepted food stamps as offerings and
then cashed them in at Deeper Life-owned meat markets. A number of children have been
removed by Child Protective Services from the San Antonio establishment because of
parental neglect. (Rachel L. Toalson, San Antonio Express-News, Internet, 6/21/04)
Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith
Charged in Exorcism Death
A Milwaukee jury has found school janitor and part-time minister Ray Hemphill guilty of
felony child abuse in the death of an 8-year-old autistic boy, Terrence Cottrell, Jr., from
whom he tried to exorcise demonic spirits that allegedly caused the child‘s autism. The
death was ruled a homicide by suffocation ―due to external chest compression.‖

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 &3, 2004, Page 165
Up to a dozen prayer sessions over a three-week period, according to the boy‘s mother,
included forcing Terrence to the floor and pinning him down with Hemphill ―holding his head
down, with his knee pinned across Terrence‘s chest to keep him from moving.‖ The
exorcism also reportedly included ―singing, praying, and a laying on of hands while the
preacher pleaded into the struggling boy‘s ear for the demons to leave.‖ Terrence‘s mother
joined the church only months before her son‘s death. She had hoped a higher power could
help where medication had failed.
The defense argued, with the support of expert witnesses, that the boy might have
overdosed on the anti-psychotic drugs he was taking, and did not suffocate as a result of
the preacher restraining him, as prosecution medical testimony claimed.
Pastor Hemphill‘s brother testified that God has the power to take life away, and with
reference to his brother‘s pressing his body against the boy‘s during the exorcism, he said:
―If I lay down on somebody and he passes away? God took him, I didn‘t.‖ (Derrick Nunnally,
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Internet, 7/5/04, 7/8/04 Lisa Sweetingham, CNN News, Court
TV, Internet, 7/9/04)
Helge Fossmo/Bride of Christ
Pastor Accused of Manipulating Woman to Murder
Pentecostal minister Helge Fossmo, 32, is on trial accused of systematically manipulating
and brainwashing the family nanny, Sara Svensson, 27, also on trial, forcing her to take
part in sex rituals in order to drive the devil away, and finally getting her to kill his wife for
him. Svensson has also confessed to attempting to kill Daniel Linde, with whose wife
Fossmo was allegedly having an affair.
Fossmo is reportedly the high priest of a cult, in the village of Knutby, controlled by Asa
Waldau, 36, who calls herself the Bride of Christ. Many members of the group, which
apparently dominates the village, are young software specialists who believe Waldau is in
constant conversation with God and has the right to exercise absolute power over them.
Aftonbladet reports the nanny says she was tested the way Abraham was when God
commanded him to kill Isaac she committed the murder to show her fear of God. It is
thought that the pastor, who controlled the nanny through e-mail and anonymous telephone
messages, wanted to avoid a divorce but still get free of his wife. Police say the pastor was
also behind the death of his first wife. The prosecutor says: ―He made her [Svensson]
believe she was doing it on assignment from God. She thought she would come closer to
God by carrying out these deeds.‖ (The Local, Sweden, Internet, 5/7/04 Elin Blank, The
Times, UK, cited in The Australian, Internet, 5/19/04)
Pushed to Believe She Was “Bride of Christ”
Asa Waldau, a prominent member of a congregation in Knutby, Sweden, whose minister is
on trial for conspiring to murder his own wife, says that the defendant, Pastor Helge
Fossmo, ―wanted to elevate me. He pushed me to live as the ‗Bride of Christ‘ to exert his
power. He tricked me, and this year I have gradually come to question this picture of
myself.‖
Fossmo is accused of influencing the family nanny, Sara Svensson, to kill his wife as well as
the husband of a woman with whom he was apparently having an affair. Fossmo is also
suspected of killing his first wife, who died last year in an apparent bathroom fall. Waldau
says Fossmo told her he had dreamed seven times that his wife would die in the bathtub.
(The Local, Sweden, Internet, 6/4/04)