VOLUME 9 |ISSUE 1 |2018 3737
News Desk
Campbelltown home of fugitive Agape cult leader Rocco Leo
to be auctioned
“It survived the end-of-the-world prediction made by its fugitive
owner—and now the home of Agape Ministries doomsday
cult leader Rocco Leo will go under the hammer at auction. The
2258 sq[uare] m[eter] property at 25 Hart St, Campbelltown,
was opened for inspection to the public on Saturday as part of
a court-ordered sale later this month. It is expected to sell for
more than $1.5 million as part of Supreme Court action designed
to repay the doomsday cult’s creditors, including the Australian
Taxation Office. … The Sunday Mail was told Ms Leo, who became
the registered owner of the property with Rocco Leo in 1998, did
not want to talk to the media or about the sale. ‘We’re told she has
nothing to do with the (Agape) cult and like everyone else she is
just cleaning up the consequences,’ a representative linked to the
sale said. The Hart St property was unremarkable until it made
national media in 2010, when the cult’s world came tumbling
down and Leo fled to Fiji where he currently lives. … Rocco Leo
could not be contacted on Saturday but, in the Supreme Court in
March, his Adelaide ‘messenger,’ Kathryn Conder, said her leader
would not attend court only because he could not afford an
airfare from Fiji. ‘Pastor Rocco is a man of God and he’s telling you
that, if someone makes a decision against whomsoever is a man
of God, they will personally see the hand of God move,’ she said.
‘So it’s really important that people understand that to try to fight
against the hand of God is futile. To make a wrong decision, well,
the judgment of God can come down on a person’s head that
very day.’” (The Advertiser/Australia, 10/07/17)
Ex-members describe military-atyle Christian sect now
accused of child abuse
“They are an ‘Army of God’ waiting for Armageddon at their
compound in a remote corner of New Mexico. They wear
uniforms, have ranks, and take their orders from a self-appointed
‘general’ named Deborah ‘Lila’ Green who claims to be an ‘Oracle
of God.’ And for the hundred or so members of the Aggressive
Christian Missions Training Corps (ACMTC), former followers
say, Green’s word is law. …
The ACMTC has been branded an active hate group by the
Southern Poverty Law Center for its virulent anti-Semitism and
gay bashing, which is discussed on its web site. Arrest warrants
obtained by NBC News allege that Green presided over a
compound where the births were not reported to authorities
and children, who held the rank of private, were trained to hide
when the police came around. Green also was loath to allow in
doctors, not even when a flu virus ‘passed through the camp
in 2013,’ according to the warrants. One child—a girl allegedly
smuggled in from Uganda—was treated especially badly, the
warrants revealed. She became Green’s personal slave and was
reportedly ‘treated like a dog’ and whipped bloody for the most
minor of infractions with the equivalent of a cat-o-nine tails, the
warrants state. That girl, who is named in the papers but is not
being identified by NBC News, told investigators that she was
sexually abused by Green and by her son-in-law Peter Green,
also known under the name Mike Brandon, who raped her four
times a week from the time she was seven, the warrants allege. …
Another follower, Stacey Miller, allegedly fled the compound after
investigators began looking into the death of one of her children
during the flu epidemic. She was arrested on a child abuse charge
in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She told police the
child died after he “began to leak puss from his forehead.” Miller
admitted to investigators she did not report his death to the
authorities. Yet another key member of the sect, Joshua Green,
is charged with failing to properly register a birth, according to
the warrants. All were being held in the local lockup and it was
not immediately clear if they had gotten lawyers. But on their
website, the sect denied the charges. ‘We don’t know who all
the accusers are, but the accusations are just re-runs of old lies
that have been investigated and shown to be malicious attacks
against a legitimate ministry,’ they said in a statement obtained by
The Associated Press. … Rick Alan Ross, an expert on cults, said he
is very familiar with this group and said it runs on the backs of the
free labor done by the children. He said the grownups are sent
out to sell baked goods, picture frames and other trinkets they
manufacture, and the money goes back to Green. ‘In my opinion,
they fit the profile of a classic destructive cult,’ he said. ‘It’s run by
Deborah Green. She is the charismatic personality. Her husband
is subordinate. Whatever comes out of Deborah’s mouth is the
word of God. Everybody’s wrong except Deborah.’” (NBCNews.com,
08/28/17)
German court jails fugitive doctor over Colonia Dignidad
child sex abuse
“A German court has sentenced a doctor who fled Chile to five
years in prison for involvement in child sex abuse at a commune
called Colonia Dignidad. The court upheld a Chilean prison
sentence for Hartmut Hopp, a German citizen in his seventies.
Hopp worked with Paul Schäfer, a former Nazi soldier who
founded the commune in southern Chile in 1961. … Germany last
year said it would declassify its files on the sect, and the foreign
minister at the time, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, admitted that the
diplomatic service had failed to stop the abuses. The scale of the
abuses only came to light after Schäfer faced a series of lawsuits
in 1997. He fled Chile and was arrested in Argentina in 2005.
He was convicted in Chile of sexual abuse of children, weapons
possession and human rights violations. He died in a Chilean jail
in 2010 at the age of 88.” (BBC News, 08/14/17)
Exclusive Brethren paid potential witness in sex-abuse case to
remain silent
“The Exclusive Brethren church has been covering up child
sex abuse for decades, and last year I wrote about it. The story
told of children who were denied, bullied or bought off by the
religious sect to keep their abuse secret. The main source for the
story was the Brethren’s former spokesman, Tony McCorkell. A
towering, flawed mountain of a man, McCorkell went nervously
on the record with me, breaking ranks a decade after leaving the
church and confessing to the role he had played in the history
News Desk
Campbelltown home of fugitive Agape cult leader Rocco Leo
to be auctioned
“It survived the end-of-the-world prediction made by its fugitive
owner—and now the home of Agape Ministries doomsday
cult leader Rocco Leo will go under the hammer at auction. The
2258 sq[uare] m[eter] property at 25 Hart St, Campbelltown,
was opened for inspection to the public on Saturday as part of
a court-ordered sale later this month. It is expected to sell for
more than $1.5 million as part of Supreme Court action designed
to repay the doomsday cult’s creditors, including the Australian
Taxation Office. … The Sunday Mail was told Ms Leo, who became
the registered owner of the property with Rocco Leo in 1998, did
not want to talk to the media or about the sale. ‘We’re told she has
nothing to do with the (Agape) cult and like everyone else she is
just cleaning up the consequences,’ a representative linked to the
sale said. The Hart St property was unremarkable until it made
national media in 2010, when the cult’s world came tumbling
down and Leo fled to Fiji where he currently lives. … Rocco Leo
could not be contacted on Saturday but, in the Supreme Court in
March, his Adelaide ‘messenger,’ Kathryn Conder, said her leader
would not attend court only because he could not afford an
airfare from Fiji. ‘Pastor Rocco is a man of God and he’s telling you
that, if someone makes a decision against whomsoever is a man
of God, they will personally see the hand of God move,’ she said.
‘So it’s really important that people understand that to try to fight
against the hand of God is futile. To make a wrong decision, well,
the judgment of God can come down on a person’s head that
very day.’” (The Advertiser/Australia, 10/07/17)
Ex-members describe military-atyle Christian sect now
accused of child abuse
“They are an ‘Army of God’ waiting for Armageddon at their
compound in a remote corner of New Mexico. They wear
uniforms, have ranks, and take their orders from a self-appointed
‘general’ named Deborah ‘Lila’ Green who claims to be an ‘Oracle
of God.’ And for the hundred or so members of the Aggressive
Christian Missions Training Corps (ACMTC), former followers
say, Green’s word is law. …
The ACMTC has been branded an active hate group by the
Southern Poverty Law Center for its virulent anti-Semitism and
gay bashing, which is discussed on its web site. Arrest warrants
obtained by NBC News allege that Green presided over a
compound where the births were not reported to authorities
and children, who held the rank of private, were trained to hide
when the police came around. Green also was loath to allow in
doctors, not even when a flu virus ‘passed through the camp
in 2013,’ according to the warrants. One child—a girl allegedly
smuggled in from Uganda—was treated especially badly, the
warrants revealed. She became Green’s personal slave and was
reportedly ‘treated like a dog’ and whipped bloody for the most
minor of infractions with the equivalent of a cat-o-nine tails, the
warrants state. That girl, who is named in the papers but is not
being identified by NBC News, told investigators that she was
sexually abused by Green and by her son-in-law Peter Green,
also known under the name Mike Brandon, who raped her four
times a week from the time she was seven, the warrants allege. …
Another follower, Stacey Miller, allegedly fled the compound after
investigators began looking into the death of one of her children
during the flu epidemic. She was arrested on a child abuse charge
in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She told police the
child died after he “began to leak puss from his forehead.” Miller
admitted to investigators she did not report his death to the
authorities. Yet another key member of the sect, Joshua Green,
is charged with failing to properly register a birth, according to
the warrants. All were being held in the local lockup and it was
not immediately clear if they had gotten lawyers. But on their
website, the sect denied the charges. ‘We don’t know who all
the accusers are, but the accusations are just re-runs of old lies
that have been investigated and shown to be malicious attacks
against a legitimate ministry,’ they said in a statement obtained by
The Associated Press. … Rick Alan Ross, an expert on cults, said he
is very familiar with this group and said it runs on the backs of the
free labor done by the children. He said the grownups are sent
out to sell baked goods, picture frames and other trinkets they
manufacture, and the money goes back to Green. ‘In my opinion,
they fit the profile of a classic destructive cult,’ he said. ‘It’s run by
Deborah Green. She is the charismatic personality. Her husband
is subordinate. Whatever comes out of Deborah’s mouth is the
word of God. Everybody’s wrong except Deborah.’” (NBCNews.com,
08/28/17)
German court jails fugitive doctor over Colonia Dignidad
child sex abuse
“A German court has sentenced a doctor who fled Chile to five
years in prison for involvement in child sex abuse at a commune
called Colonia Dignidad. The court upheld a Chilean prison
sentence for Hartmut Hopp, a German citizen in his seventies.
Hopp worked with Paul Schäfer, a former Nazi soldier who
founded the commune in southern Chile in 1961. … Germany last
year said it would declassify its files on the sect, and the foreign
minister at the time, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, admitted that the
diplomatic service had failed to stop the abuses. The scale of the
abuses only came to light after Schäfer faced a series of lawsuits
in 1997. He fled Chile and was arrested in Argentina in 2005.
He was convicted in Chile of sexual abuse of children, weapons
possession and human rights violations. He died in a Chilean jail
in 2010 at the age of 88.” (BBC News, 08/14/17)
Exclusive Brethren paid potential witness in sex-abuse case to
remain silent
“The Exclusive Brethren church has been covering up child
sex abuse for decades, and last year I wrote about it. The story
told of children who were denied, bullied or bought off by the
religious sect to keep their abuse secret. The main source for the
story was the Brethren’s former spokesman, Tony McCorkell. A
towering, flawed mountain of a man, McCorkell went nervously
on the record with me, breaking ranks a decade after leaving the
church and confessing to the role he had played in the history
