=== Waco / Branch Davidians
1. Waco case prosecutor enters plea

=== Ho No Hana Sanpogyo
2. Foot cult victims win damages suit

=== Falun Gong
3. Freed sect woman tells of jail ordeal
4. China: Xinhua reports officials' success at converting Falun
Gong practitioner

=== Scientology
5. Scientology wants access to senate records

=== Catholicism
6. Bishops say theologians may teach without OK

=== Mungiki
7. Why Won't The State Clip Them Dreadlocks?

=== The Body / Attleboro Cult
8. Arguing case on religious grounds could prove hard, experts say
9. Starving boy's death detailed
10. Attleboro sect members held on bail
11. Innocent pleas filed
12. Cultists indicted in 'chilling' murder of infant

» Part 2

=== Paganism / Witchcraft
13. Heather Miller gets prison for plot to murder

=== Satanism
14. Satanist gets 42 yrs. for arson

=== Hate Groups / Hate Crimes
15. Man denies he's guilty of rights violations
16. Notorious Kansas church leader taking anti-gay message to Maine
17. Lawyer Warned of Holocaust Revision
18. FBI raids former Klan leader David Duke's home
19. Klan seeks rally in heavily Jewish suburb

=== Rebirthing
20. 'Rebirth' mom pleads not guilty
21. Woman Pleads Not Guilty To Charges Linked To Adoptive Daughter's Death

=== Other News
22. Burundi: Followers of religious sect detained (Migurumiko)
23. IRS church seizure might be first for government
24. Indianapolis church's Marshal says he hopes to avoid confrontation
25. Mankato man guilty in psychic financial scam
26. Rastafarian tackles Constitution on ganja
27. Concern as religious group plans new base (Jesus Army)
28. First contact for UFO mecca?
29. Polygamy recognised in South Africa
30. A Wive's Tale (Polygamy)
31. Sects, Rancher Fined For Water Use (Hutterites)

» Part 3

=== Noted
32. The oracle of Essex (Peniel Pentecostal Church)

=== Death Penalty / U.S. Human Rights Violations
33. U.S. Defends Capital Punishment Use
34. Texas to execute man said to be retarded
35. USA: Texas set to execute mentally disabled man as it heads for judicial killing record
36. Supreme Court Blocks Texas Execution
37. An open letter to President Bill Clinton as the first federa execution looms
38. Appeal for death penalty moratorium fails
39. Death Penalty Support Decreasing, Study Says
40. Death penalty moratorium is good first step
41. Commission To Review Death Penalty In Virginia
42. Halt Executions



=== Waco / Branch Davidians

1. Waco case prosecutor enters plea
Dallas Morning News, Nov. 14, 2000
http://www.dallasnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ST. LOUIS - A former government prosecutor pleaded not guilty Monday to charges
of obstructing the investigation into the 1993 siege at the Branch Davidian
compound in Waco.

Former assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston was charged with two counts of
obstruction of justice and three counts of lying to investigators and a federal
grand jury.
(...)

At the hearing Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Ann Medler set a trial date of
Jan. 2. Mr. Johnston is free on personal recognizance bond.

He was present at the arraignment but did not speak other than to acknowledge
that he understood the terms of the bond.
(...)

Mr. Johnston left the U.S. attorney's office in February. He admitted in July
that he had withheld several pages of notes from 1993 dealing with the FBI's use
of pyrotechnic gas.

''It's completely irrelevant and immaterial to the investigation,'' Mr. Kennedy,
speaking of the withheld notes, said after the hearing.

A congressional report issued last week praised Mr. Johnston for helping reveal
the use of pyrotechnics but condemned his failure to surrender the notes, which
indicated he was told in 1993 that FBI agents fired several incendiary military
tear gas grenades.

Mr. Johnston said he withheld the notes out of fear that hostile colleagues
might try to use what he had written to discredit him. He added that he didn't
reveal the notes to Mr. Danforth because his investigators ''treated me with the
same loathing and hostility that I had encountered from the Justice Department.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Ho No Hana Sanpogyo

2. Foot cult victims win damages suit
Asahi News (Japan), Nov. 14, 2000
http://www.asahi.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Osaka District Court on Monday ordered the Ho-no-Hana Sanpogyo foot cult to
pay 100 million yen to 16 people who were swindled by the cult.
(...)

Presiding Judge Keisuke Hayashi handed down the ruling to the cult and its
founder Hogen Fukunaga, 55.

``Their foot-readings and training were beyond the realm of religious activities
and they are illegal,'' Hayashi said.
(...)

At the trial held at the Tokyo District Court on Monday, Fukunaga's mother
admitted in her affidavit that her son did not have supernatural powers and that
she knew the foot-reading was fraudulent.

In the affidavit, she said, ``When I was ill, he never cured me with his powers.
I always went to the hospital.''

She also said that Fukunaga complained about his own foot ailments and often
received foot massages from other members.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Falun Gong

3. Freed sect woman tells of jail ordeal
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Nov. 16, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A Hong Kong Falun Gong member jailed on the mainland for eight months has been
released.

Wang Yaoqing said her arrest signalled that mainland authorities had extended
their persecution to SAR followers of the sect, which is outlawed in China.

Ms Wang, who came to Hong Kong in 1994 and is a permanent resident, said she was
jailed for eight months after being arrested in March in Shenzhen. Freed earlier
this month, Ms Wang said she went on a hunger strike during her detention.

''When I was very weak due to fasting, they asked me to clean bathrooms, mop
floors and wash dishes,'' she said. ''Because I refused to eat, the administrator
forced me to drink peppered water, and scolded me all the time.

''They asked other criminals to watch me 24 hours a day. As soon as they
discovered that I was practising exercises, they would ask other inmates to beat
me up.

''When I was released on November 4, I found my house in Shenzhen had been
auctioned off by the court without my family being notified.''
[...entire item...]

* SAR = Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong; Macau).


4. China: Xinhua reports officials' success at converting Falun Gong
practitioner
BBC Monitoring, Nov. 15, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News
Agency)

Tangshan (Hebei), 15th November: Chinese officials have successfully turned a
former Falun Gong practitioner away from the cult and he now raises chickens,
providing the latest example that people can turn away from the lure of the
cult.

Li Huiyin, 66, a farmer in north China's Hebei province, became a Falun Gong
follower two years ago. He spent all his days reciting the instructions of Li
Hongzhi, ringleader of the cult, and neglected his farmland and hog pens. As a
result, he became one of the poorest people in the village.

County officials and village heads approached Li and told him that Falun Gong
was absurd and suggested that a business tycoon deserves more respect. His wife
also persuaded him to split with Li Hongzhi and conform to communism.

Since he was a wise man, Li quickly recognized that making money was more useful
than reciting Falun Gong scriptures. Currently he is rasing 11,000 chickens and
earns thousands of yuan a year, showing no interest at all in trying to be an
immortal through the cult's meditation.
[...entire item...]


=== Scientology

5. Scientology wants access to senate records
Berliner Zeitung (Germany), Nov. 13, 2000
Translation: CISAR
http://cisar.org/001113a.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Scientology organization is trying to get a glimpse into the internal
workings of the senate government. Those affected by the request for records
access include the Interior Administration, which is responsible for
Constitutional Security, the Youth Administration, which is responsible for
sects, as well as the Commerce and Justice Administrations. In doing this
Scientology is invoking the new freedom of information law which enables
citizens access to recorded proceedings by the government.

30 sect commissioner folders
According to information the ''Berliner Zeitung'' has received, a highly placed
member of Scientology from Munich wants to look at over 30 folders in the Youth
Administration alone. Much information will have been assembled there by the
local sect commissioners of Berlin State. ''That is a highly sensitive area,''
according to the agency. Sect commissioner staff are currently viewing the files
in order to black out the sensitive text selections in the copies for
Scientology. Opinions from other agencies, political judgments from other German
states or security agency strategies are not supposed to be forwarded to third
parties. The final agency decision is supposed to be sent to Scientology this
week.

One Scientologist has already gotten access to folders in the Interior
Administration. ''But the material practically contained nothing except press
articles which were public anyway,'' said Andreas Schmid von Puskas of the
Interior Administration. The Justice Administration, however, took action
against records access, according to ''Berliner Zeitung'' information. Scientology
subsequently sued the agency in administrative court. A decision is still
pending. The Senate Commerce Administration has also be presented with a
request.

Ingo Lehmann, director of the so-called Human Rights Office of the Scientology
Church Germany, justified the requests for files access, ''Because we are
categorized as dangerous phantoms, we wanted to find out with which documents
that was founded.''

Constitutional Security views the Scientologists' new proceedings as
verification of its report from last year.

It was predicted in the report, ''The involvement of the Scientology Organization
in ending government surveillance of itself (...) is one of its primary
short-term goals. That is because surveillance forms a decisive obstacle in the
organization's endeavor for expansion on all sides.''

''Scientology's requests are problematic in the highest degree,'' said Roland
Gewalt, the CDU faction's interior political spokesman. He said he promotes
tightening up the freedom of information law.
[...entire item...]

* Germany's views of Scientology are based on the actions and philosophy
of the cult itself. The publisher of Religion News Report agrees with the
German government's view of Scientology:

''The German government considers the Scientology organization a commercial
enterprise with a history of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals and
an extreme dislike of any criticism. The government is also concerned that
the organization's totalitarian structure and methods may pose a risk to
Germany's democratic society. Several kinds of evidence have influenced this
view of Scientology, including the organization's activities in the United
States.''

Note: CISAR provides unofficial translations of german-language news reports
on the Scientology cult and related issues.

=== Catholicism

6. Bishops say theologians may teach without OK
Boston Globe, Nov. 16, 2000
http://www.boston.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
WASHINGTON - Catholic bishops cannot punish theologians who refuse to seek
permission from the church to teach, or even those denied such permission.

That declaration, made yesterday by a top official of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops, essentially removes the teeth from a controversial measure
approved by the bishops last year under pressure from the Vatican.

The requirement that instructors in theology and church history at Catholic
universities get a seal of approval from their local bishop is intended to
ensure that their teaching conforms with Catholic doctrine. But the bishops
yesterday acknowledged that trustees, not church officials, control Catholic
universities and colleges.
(...)

At a news conference later, Pilarczyk acknowledged the toothlessness of the new
church requirement for theologians. But he said the requirement is an
appropriate effort by the church to certify that people claiming to be teaching
Catholicism at Catholic colleges are ''on the same team'' as the church
hierarchy.

''There are lots of laws in the church that one could contend don't have
teeth,'' he said. ''This is a relationship we want to acknowledge, and if you
don't want to acknowledge it, there's not much we can do about it.''

Law, in an interview, went even further in an effort to assuage concerns over
the new requirement, declaring that ''theologians have to have the freedom to be
wrong.'' Although one bishop declared yesterday that he would seek to publicly
repudiate academics who had not received church approval, Law said in the
interview that ''I don't want to denounce people.''

Law said that even St. Thomas Aquinas, a famed theologian, had made errors, and
that just because a theologian has church permission to teach ''doesn't mean
they will always be 100 percent reflecting what the church is saying.'' Law said
his basic criterion for issuing a permit will be the intent of a theologian.

''Maybe a person will be engaged in speculative writing, and that has to be
judged by his or her peers,'' Law said. ''If it is rooted in the magisterium
[church doctrine], there's room for that.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Mungiki

7. Why Won't The State Clip Them Dreadlocks?
The East African (Kenya)/Africa News Service, Nov. 15, 2000 (Opinion)
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Nairobi - During the Emergency in the early 1950s, in Kenya's Central Province,
groups of men would knock on your front door in the dead of night. When the man
of the house asked, ''Who is it?'' ''It is us,'' would come the reply, and everyone
immediately understood that a Mau Mau unit was at the door.

Today, some people argue that the name Mungiki taken by a controversial sect
whose members are mostly from the Gikuyu community, is derived from the words
muingi ki - ''we are the public,'' or, not to put too fine a point on it, ''it is
us.''
(...)

On the face of it, Mungiki is composed primarily of young Gikuyus on the
periphery of society, who have lost their stake in the status quo. They take
snuff, sport dreadlocks and pray facing Mount Kenya. Some advocate female
circumcision and other rituals that were last in vogue in the years before
independence. Their basic argument appears to be that the grand Westernisation
project has failed.

In their own inarticulate way, they advocate another way of life, another value
system, though some of the values they espouse in this day and age are clearly
disconcerting even to modern Gikuyus. Still, their crusade against drunkenness,
broken families and vices like prostitution resonates with many.

As a movement aimed at cultural and religious revival, Mungiki alarms few beyond
church leaders and fervent Christians. Among the Gikuyu, indeed, this internal
struggle between different value systems has been around since Mau Mau.

In recent months, however, Mungiki has captured the attention of the country
because of their apparent penchant for challenging the state. They have even
stormed police stations to rescue locked up colleagues.
(...)

The parochialism of Mungiki, their status in the minds of many powerful people
as the radical face of Gikuyu nationalism, is actually extremely useful to a
regime that has always defined itself in contrast to the idea of Gikuyu
hegemony. Mungiki represents the alarming ''other.''

Over the past few months, every time Mungiki have tried to hold one of their
''baptisms'' or prayer meetings, the police have moved in to stop them almost
before they begin.

This is a clear indication of the extent to which they have been infiltrated by
the security services. Yet they have not been ''neutralised'' in the typical
security-service approach that would have seen the creation of pseudo-Mungikis
and the promotion of unseemly leadership wrangles over money designed to
delegitimise the organisation in the eyes of its supporters. Perhaps powerful
people would rather this did not happen because Mungiki plays a useful political
purpose.

At the beginning of August there was a Mungiki demonstration in the streets of
Nairobi against Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta. According to the press, they were even able
to pelt police headquarters and Harambee House with rotten eggs.

It struck many observers as odd that a group that cannot hold a prayer meeting
without violent police intervention was able to demonstrate in city streets
against a prominent supporter of the current government while the police
watched.

There is clearly more to Mungiki than meets the eye.

*John Githongo is Executive Director of Transparency International- Kenya.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== The Body / Attleboro Cult

8. Arguing case on religious grounds could prove hard, experts say
Boston.com/AP, Nov. 15, 2000
http://www.boston.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BOSTON (AP) Three members of a religious sect are accused of starving to death
the sect leader's infant son, calling it ''God's will.'' But legal experts say
defending the trio on the grounds of religious freedom would be troublesome.

Lawyers who have represented other parents who have made medical decisions based
on religion and then seen their children die said legally protected religious
freedoms were not meant to shield people accused of abusing a child.

''When somebody is advocating something that involves the death or serious
injury of somebody else, they're not talking about religious liberty, they're
talking about lawlessness,'' said Jordan Lorence, a Fairfax, Va.-based attorney
who has defended other parents who made medical decisions on religious grounds.

Three sect members pleaded innocent Tuesday at an arraignment in Fall River
Superior Court.
(...)

It was only in the past week that the three members of the sect, which does not
recognize the authority of the legal system, began accepting help from lawyers.
(...)

Jubinville and Francis O'Boy, Jacques Robidoux's attorney, said their defenses
may eventually include arguments on grounds of religious freedom.

''The religious part of it does raise with it some defenses that could be
argued,'' Jubinville said.

But past cases and experts suggested such a defense would be hard to manage.

''As a practical matter, it's a difficult way to go,'' said John Reinstein of
the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which has been involved in
tangential elements of the case but will not be involved in this part of the
case.

In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Massachusetts case that parents may
''be martyrs themselves,'' but they may not deny treatment to their children.

In 1993, the state's Supreme Judicial Court overturned the involuntary
manslaughter convictions of Christian Scientists David and Ginger Twitchell on a
technicality, but the ruling made it easier for the state to prosecute parents
for harming their children.

The Twitchells had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 1990 for the
death of their 2-year-old son, Robyn, who died of a surgically treatable bowel
obstruction.

Rikki Klieman, who represented the Twitchells, said the two cases aren't
comparable.

''It is inconceivable to me that a parent could starve their child to death and
watch the child die, and I think it's the kind of case where law enforcement has
to step in and go forward,'' she said.

The ACLU's Reinstein, who also was involved in the Twitchell case, said he
believed prosecutors over-charged the sect members. The indictment alleges that
Jacques Robidoux met the first-degree murder standards of premeditation and
''extreme atrocity and cruelty.''

''I think it will be a difficult case in which to get a first-degree murder
conviction,'' he said, referring to the case against Robidoux. ''First-degree
murder in the case of a child usually involves the use of violence.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


9. Starving boy's death detailed
Boston Herald, Nov. 15, 2000
http://www.bostonherald.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The leader of a ``dangerous and destructive'' Attleboro cult persuaded his
followers to ignore his starving son while the toddler's mother was so sickened
by the boy's emaciated body that she stopped bathing him, prosecutors say.

Jacques Robidoux, the cloistered sect's 27-year-old leader, spent virtually
every waking moment with his starving son, Samuel, and ``calmly advised others
in the group to ignore his pain - to ignore he was dying,'' Bristol County
Assistant District Attorney David Frank said.

And the boy's mother, 24-year-old Karen Robidoux, was so horrified by her son's
protruding ribs and bulging eyes that she stopped washing him and had to isolate
herself in a room where she couldn't hear his desperate screams, Frank said.

``They did it slowly and they did it deliberately,'' the prosecutor said. ``He
was starved and killed in a house that was filled with food. Those who saw it
were absolutely terrified.''

The Robidouxs, along with the boy's aunt, 35-year-old Michelle Mingo, for the
first time accepted lawyers' assistance and pleaded innocent yesterday to
charges connected to the child's April 1999 starvation death. Jacques and Karen
Robidoux, were held on $500,000 and $100,000 cash bail respectively after being
arraigned on murder charges in Fall River Superior Court.

Mingo, who prosecutors say concocted the twisted religious prophecy that led to
Samuel's starvation, was held on $50,000 bail on accessory charges.
(...)

Prosecutors say Mingo told the group she received a vision from God that Samuel
was only to be fed breast-milk, possibly because she was jealous over Karen
Robidoux's looks.

But former cult member Dennis Mingo said he believes his estranged wife,
Michelle, made the deadly prophecy after the women in the group decided Karen's
ego was surging because she was thinner than the rest. ``I think they thought
Karen had a vanity problem and vanity is a sin,'' Mingo said.
(...)

Michelle Mingo's attorney, Alan Zwirblis, citing Old Testament scripture,
rebutted the charges and compared the group to Jesus, saying their defiant
silence is modeled after well-known biblical teachings. ``There's been mention
that this group wouldn't speak anything before (the court),'' Zwirblis said.
``Well, neither did Jesus before (Pontius) Pilate, even when he felt the urge
that if he did speak, he'd accomplish his release.''
(...)

Dennis Mingo, who left the group before Samuel's demise, said the pressure
inside the cult was torturous and led him to flee and seek help from a
deprogrammer. ``There were times when I was in the group that I felt like I had
a gun to my head,'' he said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


10. Attleboro sect members held on bail
Boston Globe, Nov. 15, 2000
http://www.boston.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
FALL RIVER - Lawyers for three members of an Attleboro religious sect said
yesterday their clients deny charges that they systematically starved an
11-month-old child from the sect to death in the belief they were following a
revelation from God.

Sect leader Jacques Robidoux, 27, his wife Karen, 25, and Jacques's older
sister, Michelle Robidoux Mingo, 35, pleaded not guilty in Superior Court here
yesterday to charges involving the April 1999 death of the Robidouxs' son,
Samuel. They were all held on bail.

''Missing in this case is that he and the other defendants are presumed to be
innocent before a court of law,'' Francis O'Boy, Jacques Robidoux's lawyer, said
after the three were arraigned. ''The Commonwealth has a high mountain to
climb.''

During the arraignment, Mingo's defense lawyers used Biblical references in an
unsuccessful attempt to get her released on personal recognizance.
(...)

Prosecutors said that Mingo told the Robidouxs she had had a revelation from God
that they should feed Samuel only breast milk and water even after the child had
begun to eat solid food.

The revelation came at a time when Karen Robidoux was pregnant and had limited
breast milk to feed Samuel, prosecutors said.

Authorities said Mingo may have been motivated by jealousy of Karen Robidoux.
She told the Robidouxs that not feeding Samuel solid food was a way of testing
Karen and bolstering the group's strength, according to prosecutors.
(...)

At the arraignment, Alan Zwirblis, a New Bedford lawyer who is representing
Mingo, quoted Scripture to assure Superior Court Judge John A. Tierney that his
client would obey the rule of law despite the sect's reported distrust of the
legal system.

''The Bible is replete with references to God's authority in delegating to the
courts,'' Zwirblis said. ''Jesus himself never disputed the authority of
[Pontius] Pilate, just like my client does not dispute the authority of this
court.''
(...)

After the arraignment, as the three defendants were marched before a swarm of
media and into a windowless sheriff's van yesterday, Dennis Mingo, the
ex-husband of Michelle and a former sect member, said he believed the sect was
unfazed by the recent turn of events.

''They keep continuing to amaze me in different ways,'' Mingo said. ''They still
feel they're subject to God's law only. And they're far from crashing. Right
now, to face reality would be pretty hard.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


11. Innocent pleas filed
The Sun Chronicle, Nov. 15, 2000
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ATTLEBORO -- Signs of the battle lines being drawn over the lifestyle of an
Attleboro religious sect were visible Tuesday, with a defense lawyer arguing
over characterizations of the extended family as a `` cult.''

The differences emerged in Fall River Superior Court, where eight of the sect
members watched as three of their relatives pleaded not guilty to charges
stemming from the starvation death of Samuel Robidoux.

`` This group of people would prefer to be called a family,'' said defense
lawyer Alan Zwirblis, who was appointed to represent Michelle Robidoux Mingo.
(...)

Zwirblis said he objected to the prosecution's characterization of the family as
a `` cult'' because of the negative connotations the word has.

`` This family lives their lives, at least as they see it, according to the
Scriptures,'' Zwirblis said.
(...)

The defense lawyer said his client, who listened without a change of expression
during the recounting of the details of Samuel Robidoux's death, `` answers to a
much higher authority than we have here.''
(...)

Quoting Attleboro Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth P. Nasif, Assistant District
Attorney David Frank maintained that the defendants belonged to a `` dangerous
and a destructive cult'' led by Jacques Robidoux.

`` They are members of a cult that considers themselves above the law,'' Frank
said, adding that the prosecution's case was strong and the likelihood of a
conviction was high for all three defendants.

He said the defendants were responsible for the death of 11-month-old Samuel
Robidoux, who was starved over a period of two months by his parents.
(...)

Samuel Robidoux and his infant cousin Jeremiah Corneau were buried in the
wilderness in Maine. Their bodies were recovered last month. Jeremiah, the son
of David and Rebecca Corneau, is reported to have died at birth.

Frank said the members of the sect intended on taking the bodies with them into
Canada but turned back into Maine when they saw guards at the border.

Prosecutors said they wanted to charge others in the sect with being accessories
after the fact but could not because of a loophole in the law protecting
relatives of principals to a crime.

Maine charges possible
However, some of the members may face charges in Maine, where the district
attorney for Penobscot and Piscataquis counties is awaiting reports from the
Bristol County district attorney's office.

District Attorney Christopher Almy said he wants to review the evidence before
deciding what charges to file in the case.

He said eventual targets could face a misdemeanor charge of abuse of a corpse
which carries a six-month jail sentence, a $1,000 fine or both.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


12. Cultists indicted in 'chilling' murder of infant
Boston Herald, Nov. 14, 2000
http://www.bostonherald.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An Attleboro cult leader and his wife will face a murder rap for allegedly
starving their young son to death, and the child's aunt will be charged with
orchestrating the ``horrific'' killing out of jealousy, prosecutors said
yesterday.

``This is one of the most chilling homicides I've ever had to deal with in my
life,'' Bristol County District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. said of the
``torture'' death of Samuel Robidoux. ``No religious group in the world allows
this to happen. This is a clear case of murder. This isn't religion.''
(...)

Ten other cultists, including two who helped bury Samuel in Maine, won't be
charged, due partly to a loophole in state law that protects blood relatives and
in-laws from being charged as accessories after a murder. Also, prosecutors say,
the others in the insular sect were not obligated to stop or report the boy's
starvation.

``Nothing in the law says you have to save anybody,'' prosecutor Walter Shea
said.

Mark and Tim Daneau, who helped dig Samuel's grave, could, however, face charges
in Maine, where it is a crime to illegally bury a body, Walsh said.
(...)

The Attleboro-based sect, called ``The Body,'' bases its beliefs on the Old
Testament and denounces seven mainstream institutions, including the medical and
legal systems.

Former cult member Dennis Mingo, who left the group as it became increasingly
radical, said he thinks some members still think God will save them.

``They believe God doesn't come through until the last minute, when there's no
other hope,'' he said. ``It's a very dangerous way of thinking.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

» Continued in Part 2