While not currently the biggest criminal law story regarding a religious compound, a leader in New Mexico has been arrested on sex crime charges. It seems like a bad time to be in a religious compound. From CNN:
The leader of an apocalyptic New Mexico church who claims to be the Messiah was arrested Tuesday on sex charges, state police said.
Wayne Bent, who also goes by the name Michael Travesser, was arrested at the compound that is home to his Lord Our Righteousness Church, called Strong City by members. He was being interviewed, said state police spokesman Peter Olson.
The arrests come after three children were removed from the compound late last month.
A Tuesday post on the group's Web site said Bent was arrested Tuesday morning.
"I was told by the agent in charge of the case that the arrest warrant specified charges of three counts of sexual contact with a minor, and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor," said the post, written by an unnamed follower. "The bail was set at half a million dollars."
Meanwhile, Grits and TalkLeft are covering the religious compound story that most people are following. I still don't have anything insightful to add to the story, but if you are interested, Grits is definitely providing some thorough and provocative posts about the story.
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