Yahweh Ben Yahweh empire invisible as leader awaits ruling

If Yahweh Ben Yahweh is allowed to rejoin his Miami followers when he walks out of federal prison on Aug. 17, he will return to a Nation of Yahweh empire that is still in business, but deliberately invisible.

Once, a high-profile force in Miami, the Nation of Yahweh owned numerous white buildings and white vehicles until 14 murders were connected to the group and the teachings of its founder. It was these teachings that landed Yahweh Ben Yahweh (which means God, Son of God, in Hebrew) in prison for conspiring to commit murder as part of a racketeering enterprise.

Before their leader's conviction in 1992, the Yahwehs owned a huge temple on Northwest 27th Avenue, a four-story apartment building near Northwest 62nd Street, and hotels on Biscayne Boulevard and the ocean, not to mention restaurants, supermarkets, retail stores and houses. They also owned a hotel and restaurant in Atlanta, as well as hundreds of white cars, vans, buses and 18-wheeler trucks.

But the visible assets of the empire, once estimated at $100 million, are now gone.
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Other monies seem to have disappeared in a manner as mysteriously as the Yahweh people, now rarely seen on Miami streets in their characteristic white robes and turbans. In fact, only two known Yahweh organizations still exist: a small home school for Yahweh children run out of an apartment in North Miami and a foundation dedicated to raising funds for Yahweh Ben Yahweh's legal battles. The Yahwehs sell videos and books on a website.

``The Yahwehs are still believed to have members, but, except for a few, nobody knows where. We have reason to believe, however, that he is still in control of them because of the phone calls, visitors and mail he received in prison,'' says Richard Scruggs, former assistant U.S. Attorney who was the leading prosecutor against Yahweh.

According to FBI reports, the Yahweh followers are waiting for their leader to get out on parole and take over again. But take over what is unclear.
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But Yahweh member and attorney Wendellyn Rush shed some light on Yahweh activity when she spoke in federal court last week at the hearing to decide whether Yahweh Ben Yahweh can return to The Nation of Yahweh upon his release from prison next week. (Federal Judge K. Michael Moore should rule before Aug. 17.) Rush said the Yahwehs had a religious celebration at a Montreal hotel recently, with about 1,000 people attending.
Indeed, the Yahwehs had two conferences and religious celebrations in Montreal in the spring -- one in early April and one in late May. The first was at the Montreal Holiday Inn midtown, the second at The Hilton Bonaventure in Montreal. Each conference had about the same number of people according to hotel executives -- about 700 people, with over 300 of them staying in the host hotels.
A Hilton manager described them as ``unbelievably pacifistic and polite people.''
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They registered from all over the United States, with some from Canada, and they paid up front with a check from The Nation of Yahweh, which went through without a hitch.
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``About $200,000 for each booking,'' the Hilton manager said.

They have also booked The Hilton in the fall and have paid another $200,000.

No one in the government, though, seems to know where the money is coming from.
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Lloyd Clark, a former Yahweh member who defected and is now in hiding, says Yahweh finances were always a mystery: ``All of that money didn't come from selling Yahweh literature on the streets or Yahweh shampoo. I was close to the top of the organization and I never knew where the money came from,'' he said.

But all of the mysterious money does not erase the fact that if Yahweh Ben Yahweh does not prevail in federal court and loses the right to once again lead his fold, he will have to go to a halfway house and get a job next week.
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