Inspectors to probe allegations cult runs Hub rooming house :

City housing inspectors are slated to visit the Dorchester headquarters of the Twelve Tribes cult today to look into allegations that they may be running an illegal rooming house, among other possible violations.

As many as 50 members of the controversial sect live at the group's commune on Melville Avenue in Dorchester but the house is listed only as a single family home, according to city records. Under state law, an illegal rooming house is one where more than five unrelated adults are living.

Inspectors are also probing whether the group may have drilled illegal wells on the property. Sources told the Herald all of the sect's properties - including the Dorchester location - have wells which are drilled by a member who runs a drilling business.

"They never get permits for anything,'' the source said. ``But no one wants to get involved when religion is involved. That's what makes (investigating them) difficult.'' Lisa Timberlake, spokeswoman for the city's Inspectional Services Department, said there would be a ``full investigation'' and ``complete inspection'' of the property.

According to the source, the group left their Providence house three years ago after officials found 70 people living in a single family home and cited them for housing code violations. The group, which also ran an unpermitted print shop out of the house, left Providence and has not returned.

The fundamentalist sect also had problems at their Oak Hill, N.Y., commune when there were so many people living in one house they overflowed the septic system and contaminated a neighbor's well, the source said. In recent years, neighbors in Dorchester have complained that members have handed out anti-gay literature, hosted loud celebrations and run illegal businesses out of the house.

A two-part series in the Herald this week detailed allegations that the cult beats their children, practices child labor and is racist and homophobic. The 3,000-member group, which runs the Common Ground Cafe in Lower Mills, has more than 30 compounds worldwide, including sites in Hyannis, Plymouth, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Those who've left the group describe the cult as a brainwashing sham religion that sucks members dry of their money and property and forces them into a life of indentured servitude.

The sect has been embroiled in a number of child custody scandals, in addition to an ongoing child labor probe in New York, and there have been investigations into newborn deaths. Ex-members also say kids have died of preventable diseases such as whooping cough and hepatitis over the years because children are not vaccinated or taken to doctors.

Members admit that adults are permitted to strike kids with thin sticks but they say it is merely discipline, not abuse. They also admit that children sometimes work with them in their shops and factories but deny violating child labor laws.

While their teachings say that blacks are naturally subservient to whites and they preach that Martin Luther King ``deserved to be killed,'' members deny they are racist, pointing out that there are black members.
- RELATED ARTICLES Cult leader travels the world in style :
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult09052001.htm
Cult leader´s lawyer seeks poll to test ´fair trial´ :
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult08012001.htm -- http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult09052001.htm Boston Herald, Local & Regional - 5 september 2001 - by Dave Wedge Cult leader travels the world in style :

Second of two parts.

While his loyal followers toil in shops and factories or work the fields for the common good of the Twelve Tribes, the controversial cult's elusive leader Elbert Eugene " Yoneq'' Spriggs travels the globe, bedding down in palatial homes in southern France, Brazil and Cape Cod, former members say.

"They have lots of money and they give most of it to Yoneq,'' 18-year-old former member Zebulun Wiseman says. ``He's constantly flying around. He lives a life of luxury.'' Spriggs, the sect's reclusive 64-year-old ``super apostle,'' founded the fringe fundamentalist group after claiming he received a ``vision'' from God on a California beach in 1971. A former carnival barker and high school guidance counselor from Chattanooga, Tenn., Spriggs is a thrice-divorced, self-anointed messenger of God who spends most of his time touring his religious empire of shops, cafes, workshops and communes with his fourth wife, Marsha, aka ``Ha-Emeq.'' The controversial cult has homes and businesses in Dorchester, Hyannis and Plymouth, in addition to several locations in Vermont and New York.

Constantly scoping out sites for new compounds, ex-members say Spriggs' life is a nonstop whirlwind global tour filled with frequent stays in private digs in Sus, France; Sao Paulo, Brazil; and a lakefront home in Brewster. Throughout his travels, Spriggs spreads his gospel to his loyal followers, handing down bizarre New Testament interpretations, some of which promote racism, homophobia, child abuse and child labor.

"They are controlled by an absolute totalitarian leader. (Spriggs) runs the show,'' said noted cult expert Rick Ross. ``He rules in a very singular role of absolute authority. He sees himself as an intermediary between God and the world.'' While members live humbly in clusters of 50 or more, Spriggs has his own private quarters in several locations, including a secret four-bedroom getaway pad overlooking Canoe Pond in Brewster. The $402,000 home, nestled in a swank residential neighborhood, is owned by a Rhode Island realty trust but ex-members say Spriggs stays there when in the Bay State, often with his close underling, 39-year-old Marcel Masse. Most of the cult's New England properties, including homes in Dorchester and Hyannis, are in Masse's name.

Spriggs also has plush new chambers - including marble floors and intricately carved oak fixtures - in the group's newly renovated house, a former nursing home, on Route 3A in Plymouth. While his followers turn over their vehicles, property and bank accounts to the group, Spriggs travels by chauffeured car and often goes on expensive shopping junkets with his wife, ex-members say.

"She gets to shop and fly around the world while all the other women are in the communities taking care of children,'' Wiseman, son of the group's second-in-command, Charles ``Eddie'' Wiseman, said. ``And all the other men are working their butts off, but Yoneq is out living it up.'' "This man is viewed as being like Moses,'' Robert Pardon, a cult deprogrammer who helps Twelve Tribes defectors, said of Spriggs. ``But people's lives are ground up by this group. People die in this group.'' Twelve Tribes members, however, sing Spriggs' praises, saying he is merely the group's highest ranking apostle who strives for nothing more than peace for the community.

"There's no better man than him,'' said member Andre ``Kepha'' Masse.

"He's one of the most humble men I know. I have great respect for him.'' William "Kharash'' Smith, an elder at the sect's Bellows Falls, Vt., community, denied Spriggs is a flashy, free-spending cult leader.

"He doesn't wear jewelry or own cars. If he's got money, it's really well-hidden,'' Smith said, describing Spriggs as a "traveling teacher'' comparable to the Catholic apostle Paul. "He lives no differently than the rest of us.'' Spriggs has no permanent address and messages left for him at several Twelve Tribes houses were not returned.

Spriggs' rise from hippie-era Christian to mysterious cult leader took him from Tennessee to California to the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont. A former high school football player who held various factory jobs over the years, he spent time preaching to ski bums in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and worked with the homeless in California before creating the Vine Street Church in Chattanooga in the early 1970s.

Disenchanted with mainstream religion and frustrated with increasing scrutiny of his teachings in Tennessee, he moved the growing cult to Island Pond, Vt., a remote town of about 1,000 people just a few miles from the Canadian border. There, the sect flourished with 300 members living in 14 houses while other compounds sprung up around the world.

The Island Pond community was the site of a 1984 raid in which 112 cult kids were snatched by the government amid horrific abuse allegations.

The charges were later tossed out, but the group now only has two houses and about 70 members living in Island Pond. There are an estimated 3,000 members living in more than 30 locations worldwide, including at least seven New England compounds.

Ross, who has butted heads with the Twelve Tribes on national TV, says the cult's finances are a complex ``labyrinth'' of corporations and trusts - none of which are in Spriggs' name but all of which line his pockets. He draws comparisons between Spriggs and doomsday cultists like David Koresh of the Waco, Texas, Branch Davidians and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Moonies, saying Spriggs is creating a brainwashed mass of blind followers whose very existence hinges on his every word.

"He preaches that his followers have a vital role in the end of the world,'' Ross said. Their religion is largely based around the inevitable coming of the end of the world and some of the group's writings at the turn of the new millennium hinted at an apocalypse. One newsletter ran a rambling cover piece titled ``The Last Day.'' The group recruits lost souls, guaranteeing salvation from an eternity in the "Lake of Fire,'' which they say awaits non-believers.

While there is no evidence that Spriggs has a sinister plan for violence or mass suicide, experts and former members say the blind obedience of the cultists could be a recipe for disaster one day.

"On the day they're instructed to do something stupid, they'll do it because they don't have the ability to reason,'' ex-member Kris Wetterman of Tulsa, Okla., said. ``It's a dangerous cult. It's sick.'' Wetterman was a Twelve Tribes member for two years, living in compounds in St. Joseph, Mo., Colorado Springs, Colo., and Warsaw, Mo. She says she left the group after witnessing a possibly preventable stillbirth and unbearable child abuse and neglect - including against her own son.

She said children are ``broken'' through relentless verbal abuse and beaten ``mercilessly'' until they admit to sin, regardless of their guilt. Any adult is permitted - even obligated - to discipline any child as deemed fit, she said.

Since threatening to call 911 and fleeing the Warsaw, Mo., house last year, Wetterman has been in a bitter custody dispute with her ex-husband, Chris Wetterman, who remains in the cult. Their 11-year-old son lives with her in Oklahoma but her husband wants the boy to rejoin him in the sect.

-- http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult07132001.htm Boston Herald, Local & Regional - 13 July 2001 - by Dave Wedge Report: Cult infant starved to death, buried in state park :

An infant found buried in a Maine state park last year was the son of an Attleboro cult leader and his wife and medical tests have proven that the boy starved to death, prosecutors say.

"It's what we expected,'' Bristol County Assistant District Attorney Walter Shea said of the Maine medical examiner's report. ``The remains have been positively identified as those of Samuel Robidoux. The remains indicate that the cause of death was starvation and the manner of death is homicide.'' A forensic anthropologist determined the child died of starvation because of the ``lack of bone marrow'' and the size of the tiny skeleton, Shea said.

Samuel Robidoux, who was 10 months old, was missing for nearly a year before a member of the Attleboro-based religious sect ``The Body'' led investigators to a makeshift grave in Maine's Baxter State Park last October. The boy's parents, Jacques and Karen Robidoux, face charges that they starved the boy to death to fulfill a bizarre religious prophecy set forth by the boy's aunt, Michelle Mingo.

Jacques Robidoux, the 27-year-old reputed leader of the fundamentalist religious group, faces first-degree murder charges while his wife is charged with second-degree murder. Mingo is charged with being an accessory for allegedly concocting a ``vision from God'' that ordered the tight-knit sect to feed Samuel only breast milk, even though he had already started eating table food.

Prosecutors say the boy slowly starved to death over a six-week period in the summer of 1999 and was later buried alongside his stillborn cousin in Maine.

Yesterday, the Robidouxes and Mingo were supposed to give handwriting samples to determine who wrote several journals that graphically detail Samuel's slow demise. The trio refused to give the samples, however, because prosecutors gave them something different to write than what an Attleboro judge ordered.

Jacques Robidoux's attorney, Frank O'Boy, said his client would follow the court order to write the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, but Shea says the state's handwriting expert needs a more thorough sample to analyze.

"They wanted them to write something different and he refused,'' O'Boy said. ``My client will do what the court ordered him to do, but nothing beyond.'' Shea said both sides will go back to court to agree on what the three will write.

O'Boy also said he will seek to have the case moved out of Bristol County because of widespread publicity, a move Shea said prosecutors would oppose.

Shea said there have been no plea negotiations with any of the three but sources said Karen Robidoux may seek to have her trial separated from her husband's case.

-RELATED ARTICLES Inspectors to probe allegations cult runs Hub rooming house http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult09062001.htm Cult leader travels the world in style http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult09052001.htm Cult leader´s lawyer seeks poll to test ´fair trial´ http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult08012001.htm -- http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/cult08012001.htm Boston Herald, Local & Regional - 1 August 2001 - by Dave Wedge Cult leader's lawyer seeks poll to test 'fair trial' :

The lawyer for an Attleboro cult leader facing murder charges in his son's starvation death wants the state to pay for a public opinion poll to determine if his client can get a fair trial.

Taunton attorney Frank O'Boy, who is representing accused child killer Jacques Robidoux, was slated to ask a New Bedford Superior Court judge this morning to order the state to pay $7,500 for a poll of Eastern Massachusetts residents on their opinions of the Attleboro cult case.

The money would be paid out of the public defender's office budget.

Citing widespread publicity in the case, O'Boy is also seeking to have the trial transferred out of Bristol County to Western Massachusetts, possibly to Franklin County.

Eddie Sirois, spokesman for Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh, declined comment yesterday. Bill Leahey, chief counsel for the Committee for Public Counsel, said the move is unusual but necessary in some cases.

"It's used when there is saturation coverage,'' Leahey said. He said the agency can only approve the funding under court order.

Robidoux, the 28-year-old reputed leader of the fundamentalist sect "The Body,'' is accused of starving his 10-month-old son, Samuel, to death last year to fulfill a twisted religious prophecy.

The toddler's mother, Karen Robidoux, 25, is charged with second-degree murder. Samuel's aunt, 36-year-old Michelle Mingo, faces accessory charges for allegedly concocting a ``vision from God'' ordering the couple not to feed the boy.

Samuel was missing for months before his body was unearthed from a makeshift grave in Maine's Baxter State Park last October.

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