Top 10 Times Religious Leaders Got Arrested
#10: Warren Jeffs
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Polygamy is still practiced within a number of Mormon denominations, including the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. However, the legal ages of consent definitely still apply, which is the reason former FLDS president Warren Jeffs was arrested back in 2006. Before being caught, he’d arranged illegal marriages for parishioners, leading Arizona and Utah to issue warrants for his arrest. Jeffs went on the run, but was caught during a routine traffic stop. He was convicted of sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault, referencing the relationships he had with his spouses. He is currently serving a life sentence, plus an additional twenty years.
#9: Samuel Mullet
The Amish lifestyle, by nature, is generally one of conservative simplicity. But what happens when a community leader decides that his contemporaries aren’t being conservative enough? Enter the Bergholz Community, an Amish group led by one Samuel Mullet who wielded his power so strictly that he drove out and excommunicated nine families. In 2012 Mullet was convicted of federal hate crime and conspiracy charges, after spearheading a beard-cutting campaign committed by his loyalists. This is a huge offense in Amish culture, since the growing of beards after marriage is considered sacred. Mullet received fifteen years for his involvement in the attacks, although this sentence was reduced in 2015.
#8: Roch Thériault
The story of doomsday prophet and cult leader Roch Thierault will make your blood run cold. In the late 1970s, he founded a commune called the Ant Hill Kids in Quebec, Canada, promising freedom, equality, and unity. Instead, he isolated members from their friends and families, impregnated the women, and subjected everyone in the commune to horrific abuse we can’t even begin to describe here. He would make cult members “punish” each other and even themselves in brutally sadistic ways. In 1984 the commune relocated to Ontario. Only in 1989 was Thierault arrested and charged with assault; this also led to murder charges and a life sentence. He never ended up finishing this sentence, however, as he was killed by a fellow inmate in 2011.
#7: Sun Myung Moon
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Remember the “Moonies”? From the 1970s onward, that was the popular name for members of The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, derived from the name of their leader Sun Myung Moon. These days, “Moonies” is less used, but the group is still around. Moon claimed he was the Second Coming of Christ, and became infamous for conducting mass weddings of his followers. Moon was actually arrested twice, the first time in 1947 by North Korea on spying charges, and in 1982 by the United States for tax evasion. The leader did prison time for both arrests, serving three years hard labor in North Korea, and 13 months in a low security Connecticut prison, after which he was released for good behavior.
#6: L. Ron Hubbard
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This isn’t quite an “arrest”, as the founder of Scientology wasn’t successfully taken into custody. But the charges, trial, and the man himself are notable enough that we had to squeeze it in. L. Ron Hubbard wore a lot of hats during his life, including as a science fiction author, the latter of which birthed Dianetics, and eventually Scientology. The controversial religion has been relegated as a cult in France since 1995, but Hubbard was actually tried and convicted in absentia for fraud back in 1978, along with an associate who ran the French branch of Scientology. Hubbard was sentenced to four years in prison and fined thirty-five thousand francs, but he never returned to France to pay the fine or serve the time.
#5: Jim Bakker
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Televangelists still make headlines today, but they were particularly visible during the 1980s, especially our next entry, Jim Bakker. The empire Bakker ran with his wife Tammy Faye was, at one point, so expansive that the couple even managed a Christian theme park together. However, “Heritage USA” was only part of the Bakker story. In the late 80s, his former secretary accused him of sexual assault, and Bakker faced indictments for fraud. Tried for the latter, Bakker was initially sentenced to 45 years, but that was reduced to eight years in 1992. Today the man who financially defrauded so many of his flock is free, remarried and back on the air with a new television show.
#4: Keith Raniere
You’ve probably heard of Keith Raniere and NXIVM, especially thanks to the involvement of celebrities like “Smallville” actress Allison Mack. In 1998 Keith Raniere founded the cult NXIVM as a sort of personal development pyramid scheme. But while Raniere was giving seminars about “self-improvement”, he was systematically manipulating and abusing women, with the help of recruiters like Mack. The cult included a secret society of women who were branded and referred to as “slaves”. Raniere got away with it until his arrest in 2018. The following year he was convicted of sex trafficking and conspiracy and sentenced to 120 years behind bars.
#3: Fred Phelps
The Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for its anti-gay vitriol and protests at funerals. Its founder, Fred Phelps, actually started out as a civil rights lawyer, even winning awards from the NAACP for his work with African-American clients. In the late 70s, however, Phelps was disbarred in the wake of cruel, unprofessional behavior in court against a female court reporter, whom he accused of sexual promiscuity and perversion. His behavior and obsessions only got worse from there. He was eventually convicted of disorderly conduct for verbal harassment in 1994 and handed two suspended 30-day jail sentences … but avoided doing any time. He continued to protest at funerals until his death in 2014.
#2: Shoko Asahara
Aum Shinrikyo has been labeled many things since its inception in 1984, from religion to doomsday cult and terrorist organization. It was founded by Shoko Asahara, who’d already been convicted in 1981 on illegal drug charges and for practicing pharmacy without a license. He eventually declared that he was Christ, predicted an apocalyptic Third World War, and began to commit terrorist attacks, aimed at hindering legal action against him, and maybe triggering the apocalypse along the way. In March 1995, he organized a sarin gas attack that killed 13 and sickened thousands more on a crowded Tokyo subway. A long trial and series of appeals followed before Asahara was finally convicted. He and six other Aum Shinrikyo members were hanged in 2018. Before we name our number one pick, here are some dishonorable mentions. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Convicted of Sexual Assault & Murder Kent Hovind (AKA Dr. Dino) This Christian Fundamentalist Was Convicted of Tax Fraud & Domestic Violence Yahweh Ben Yahweh Convicted for Conspiracy to Commit Murder Barry Minkow From a Ponzi Scheme to Fraud Guy Desnoyers This Catholic Priest Killed His Mistress & Child, Before Confessing
#1: Charles Manson
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The head of the Manson Family has become synonymous with the death of the 60s ideal, a horrifying coda for the Summer of Love. Charles Manson’s cult may have started out with sex, drugs, and “free love”, but under his manipulative and insidious leadership, it became a murderous doomsday cult that looked forward to an apocalyptic “race war”. Manson’s life was a revolving door of crime and punishment, but the arrest and conviction for his role in masterminding the Tate-LaBianca Murders was what put him away for good. Manson would die in prison in 2017, but the legacy of those crimes remains one of the darkest footnotes in American history.
