Anti-LGBTQ Group's Compound Ordered Sold for $2.8 million
A judge has ordered the remote compound of the anti-LGBTQ group Aggressive Christianity Missionary Training Corps sold for $2.8 million.
Friday鈥檚 ruling, by Judge Amanda Sanchez Villalobos of the 13th Judicial District Court in Cibola County, New Mexico, comes in a case brought by former member .
Schmierer, in a court filing, characterized the group as a cult. One national news organization called Aggressive Christianity a 聽while another one noted the group鈥檚 鈥�.鈥�
leaders Jim and Deborah 鈥淟ila鈥� Green, and multiple members in 1989. The long legal battle involved appeals and efforts to track down the group 鈥� which changed names several times 鈥� and members who also hid their identities and have dispersed around the country.
鈥淭hey鈥檇 pull stunts like changing their names, changing their organization names,鈥� Schmierer told Hatewatch in a phone interview. 鈥淚 just over the years stayed on them.鈥�
The court appointed a special master to make a recommendation in the case. The special master, William A. Sanchez, recommended the property sale earlier in October.
Three companies 鈥� GS Financial Holdings, AKT Trust and SMJ Trust 鈥� purchased the property. The special master will write a separate report spelling out how the sale proceeds will be distributed. A California court in 1989 awarded Schmierer a $1 million default judgment, which her attorney estimates has now grown to more than $4.7 million with interest.
Aggressive Christianity Missionary Training Corps, which the 澳彩开奖 listed as a hate group from 2011 through 2017, has been on shaky ground in recent years, with its leaders, the Greens, in prison.
聽pleaded no contest to child abuse and other charges in 2018 and received a 10-year prison sentence. His wife, 聽was sentenced to 72 years in prison after being convicted on charges of child rape, kidnapping and child abuse.
鈥淭hey always railed against people and things outside of their group,鈥� said Rick Ross, a deprogrammer and executive director of the 聽鈥淭hey鈥檇 rant about the LGBT community.鈥�
鈥楨qual opportunity haters鈥�
The Greens ran the group much like a military organization, giving themselves titles of 鈥淕eneral,鈥� wearing military garb and demanding obedience and respect from followers. Those who questioned Deborah Green鈥檚 orders
鈥淭hey would say this is not a family church. This is an army of God,鈥� Schmierer said.
Jim Green and his followers also took to the internet with anti-LGBTQ posts. Green said that teaching children that LGBTQ people are normal leads to 鈥渟exual perversion鈥� as youths grow up and potentially to pedophilia.
鈥淯nder (nugatory) Obama鈥檚 administration, children have been victims of the homosexual agenda 鈥� teaching little ones the way of sexual perversions,鈥� Green wrote in one updated post. 鈥淭hey will pay for this! While denying godliness and promoting (perverted) worldliness, sick and sinister things are put into children鈥檚 minds by these sickos.鈥�
Green also railed against Catholics and other Christians he saw as less than fully committed to religion. Many members were racists who identified with the antisemitic Christian Identity philosophy, said Ross, who has worked with former Aggressive Christianity followers.
鈥淭hey were equal opportunity haters,鈥� Ross said.
Julie Ann Gudino, a one-time cult member who left in 2004, testified at a 2012 trial that the control exerted by the Greens extended to personal identities. The couple told followers their names were related to their former lifestyles, a culture that should be forsaken.
Gudino became Elizabeth Edwards in the group, where she met Schmierer. 鈥淭hose were the first names we were given, but then that was changed later on,鈥� Gudino testified about the names she and her ex-husband took.
Tracking down cult鈥檚 leaders
Schmierer escaped the group in the late 1980s and filed a lawsuit claiming false imprisonment. Over the years, she kept up her legal fight 鈥� and her judgment kept accumulating interest.
Lawyers used land purchases and public records to trace the Greens to Fence Lake, New Mexico, a rural area of around 40 people about 145 miles west of Albuquerque.
There the Greens had set up a compound for followers. The property includes a trailer and old buses, according to descriptions in the litigation.
Behind the main house, where the leaders of the anti-LGBTQ group lived, are pallets of shrink-wrapped solar panels, near where the body of 聽turned up. The death of the boy, , had never been reported. No one was charged in the death, although Jim Green pleaded no contest to failing to report it to authorities.
Schmierer鈥檚 attorney, Brendan O鈥橰eilly, toured the grounds in February and described them to Hatewatch, calling the experience 鈥渟urreal.鈥�
Commercial-grade kitchens with the ovens missing, stacks of clothes belonging to the now-imprisoned cult leaders and an assortment of oddities, such as printing presses, litter the inside of the buildings, he said.
Elsewhere, O鈥橰eilly found what appeared to be an educational building with the words 鈥淐amp Encouragement鈥� scrawled in crayon on the door, a large flat-screen television and a whiteboard set up in front of chairs.
鈥淭hat building by itself was pretty creepy and still had a lot of cult memorabilia in it,鈥� O鈥橰eilly told Hatewatch in a phone interview.
O鈥橰eilly and Schmierer said they will keep searching for property belonging to Aggressive Christianity.
Photo by Brandon N. Sanchez
