Members of a military-style Christian group in New Mexico have been arrested for what authorities are calling horrific crimes against children.
Peter Green of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps in Fence Lake was arrested Sunday morning and faces 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child, local station KOAT reported.
Deborah Green and her husband James Green are the “Generals” of the sect, according to their website and are responsible for commanding their army to spread Christian ideals throughout the world. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the organization as a hate group.
Deborah Green and members Stacey Miller and Joshua Green also face charges including child abuse, bribery of a witness and not reporting a birth.
“Knowing that these individuals are in custody now… it’s a heavy weight off my shoulders,” Sheriff Tony Mace said.
The sheriff”s office started investigating the group last year when two members, who said they’d escaped, told deputies that Deborah Green and Miller had let the latter’s 12-year-old son die of the flu in 2014. He was buried on sect property and no one reported his death. When asked why she didn’t get her son help, Miller said she “wanted to trust God.”
Deborah Green controlled the group’s money and didn’t want to pay for hospital visits, preaching that the sick “must repent to be healed,” according to reports.
Investigators also said she sexually assaulted a young girl they believe was smuggled in from Uganda with forged documents as a baby. The girl told police she was treated like a slave and regularly whipped, and that Deborah’s son-in-law, Peter Green, raped her until she was 9. The girl had been removed from the home by the Children, Youth, and Families Department.
The sheriff’s office said about 18 children still live in the commune but it did not see any other evidence of abuse or neglect..
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