Dulzura, San Diego
County -- Internal Revenue Service documents filed by the
Family Care Foundation, a not-for-profit charity in Southern California,
show deep, ongoing ties between the organization and the Family, the
evangelical sex cult rocked by a recent murder-suicide.
But officials with the Family Care Foundation deny
any connection to the controversial cult.
The religious sect, formerly known as the Children of
God, was started in the late 1960s by Oakland native David "Moses" Berg,
who attracted tens of thousands of devotees in the 1970s with his
strange brew of evangelical Christianity and sexual license.
But J. Gordon Melton, an authority on new religions
who has studied the Family for years, said the sect established the
charitable foundation to help raise money for church projects.
"The Family Care Foundation is the Family," said
Melton, who directs the Institute for the Study of American Religion in
Santa Barbara.
According to federal tax documents and annual
reports, from 1997 to 2003, the foundation raised more than $9.9 million
in donations including cash and other types of gifts for projects around
the world -- ranging from assisting orphans and street children to
medical and education programs to disaster relief.
James Penn, who spent more than a decade in the inner
circle of the globe-trotting cult, said the Family Care Foundation is a
"public front" that enables the Family to attract tax-deductible
donations and fund missionaries around the world who endorse the cult's
"bizarre beliefs and practices."
"People wouldn't give to a charitable foundation if
they knew that its leaders endorsed the sexual abuse of minors and
religious prostitution," said Penn, who helped start the foundation
before leaving the Family in 1998.
Larry Corley, executive director of the foundation,
said his organization funds many "independent projects around the
world."
"There is no relationship, period," he said. "It is
not a front for the Family. It is not tied to the Family."
Former members say the vast majority of projects
funded by the foundation are run by the Family. Two children's programs,
including one which was based in San Francisco, were run by one-time
cult members who had faced separate allegations of child sexual abuse.
All six officers listed on Internal Revenue Service
documents filed by the foundation last year have ties to the cult,
according to those who have left the sect.
One of them, Angela Smith, who is listed as a member
of the foundation's board of directors, was killed on Jan. 8 in Tucson,
apparently by Ricky "Davidito" Rodriguez. Rodriguez was the son of Karen
"Maria" Zerby, who was married to Berg until he died in 1994 and is now
the Family's chief prophetess and spiritual leader.
Rodriguez, who defected from the cult in 2000, was
born into the sect in 1975 and raised to join his mother as one of the
"two witnesses" to usher in the apocalyptic "end time" battles foretold
in the Bible's Book of Revelation.
In a chilling videotape shot the night before Smith's
murder, Rodriguez said he planned to torture Smith, his former nanny, to
get information about the whereabouts of his mother and her current
husband, Peter "King Peter" Amsterdam.
The whereabouts of Zerby, Amsterdam and other top
cult leaders have been unknown for years. Rodriguez blamed them and
other sect leaders for years of sexual and spiritual abuse he and other
children suffered while they were growing up in the sect.
But after driving all night through the Arizona
desert toward Southern California, Rodriguez stopped in the Riverside
County town of Blythe, just across the California border, and shot
himself in the head.
Just before leaving the cult, Rodriguez lived at the
Family Care Foundation headquarters at Brookside Farm, a four-acre
spread along Marron Valley Road in Dulzura, a small town east of San
Diego.
"Ricky was never part of Family Care Foundation,"
Corley said. "He passed through briefly."
In addition to Smith and Corley, who is identified by
Penn and other defectors as a longtime member of the Family, the four
other officers listed on the foundation's IRS forms are:
-- Grant Montgomery, the program director and highest
paid official with the Family Care Foundation. He is the former "prime
minister" and third-ranking leader of the Family International,
according to Penn and other former members.
-- Dr. Chris Mlot, the foundation treasurer and board
member. She is a longtime member of the sect, and shown on property
records as the owner of one of the Family's properties in Escondido.
-- Cheryl Brown, a member of the foundation board.
Penn said Brown, whose birth name is Kathleen Fowler, is another
longtime member of the cult and is a registered domain owner of the
sect's Web site, www.thefamily.org.
-- Kenneth L. Kelly, the brother of Amsterdam, whose
birth name is Steven Douglas Kelly. Kelly co-owns Family property with
Mlot, and according to Penn, is closely tied to the sect and has several
children with Mlot.
Despite those deep connections, Family spokesman
Claire Borowik said the sect "has no say or vote on the activities of
the Family Care Foundation board."
"There is no legal relationship between the Family
and the Family Care Foundation," Borowik said.
Borowik conceded, however, that the foundation "has
under its umbrella many projects run by Family members."
Jonathan Thompson, a former Family member who said he
worked as an accountant for Family Care Foundation, said the San
Diego-based charity "refuses to say they have any link to the Family."
At the same time, Thompson said the foundation does
get legitimate donations from outside sources for rank-and-file members
doing good work.
"They are people who are just part of a messed-up
system," Thompson said. "They've helped a lot of people."
Leaders of the Family International acknowledge that
sexual activity between adults and children was condoned in the group
during the 1970s and 1980s, and that it was encouraged by the writings
and prophecies of the sect's founder, including one famous tract titled
"The Devil Hates Sex."
Berg said the "law of love" encouraged sexual
"sharing" among group members and sanctioned "flirty fishing" by female
devotees who would attract male recruits with sexual favors.
Family International spokeswoman Borowik said the
Family "enacted stringent policies to ensure the safety and protection
of our children" in 1986. Other members insist the cult has long
abandoned past practices and has since enacted new policies.
Yet at least two members of the Family accused of
sexual molestation in child custody cases in England and California in
the 1990s went on to start charities funded by the Family Care
Foundation.
One of those cases is described in sealed court
documents filed in San Diego in connection with a 1998 custody case and
obtained last week by The Chronicle.
They tell the story of a girl born into the Family
International in 1981 and sexually abused from ages 5 to 16.
Her alleged abusers included a stepfather, Phillip
Slown, who she says repeatedly molested her in Thailand, where her
mother was serving as a missionary for the Family International.
According to an investigative report by the San Diego
County Department of Social Services, the girl "experienced multiple
incidents of sexual abuse with numerous men."
"This group has advocated sexual activity with minors
as a pathway to God," the report found. "Her mother continues to
interact with this religious group and she encouraged sexual behavior
between her daughter and three men as recently as March 1997."
After investigating the case, county welfare workers
removed the teenager from her parents' custody and made her a ward of
the court.
Slown went on to start a charity called From the
Heart to help "at-risk youth." It was based in San Francisco's Mission
District between 1997 and 1999 -- during which time the organization
received more than $70,000 in donations collected by the Family Care
Foundation.
"They did a really good job with drug addicts and
street kids, but I haven't heard from them in a long time," Corley said.
Slown could not be reached for comment, and his San
Francisco phone number had been recently disconnected.
The two others cases are mentioned in a lengthy child
custody decision rendered in England in 1995 by Lord Justice Alan Ward.
The decision names "Paul P. -- Josiah" as a member of
the sect's Music with Meaning team in Europe.
"He corrupted and abused the young girls who were
part of the singing and dancing troupe," Ward writes.
Penn and other former members say that is a reference
to Family member Paul Pelequin, known in the cult as "Josiah."
Pelequin was later funded by the Family Care
Foundation for a project in Africa called "Focus on Kidz." He could not
be reached for comment.
Corley said he was not aware of the abuse allegations
against Slown and Pelequin.
As for the Family ties of the other Family Care
Foundation leaders, Corley said, "I know nothing about their personal
lives."
Penn and other former members say Corley himself has
been a leading member of the Family International for about two decades.
Asked about that, he replied, "It's irrelevant."
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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/06/CULT.TMP