Jesus Freaks (17 page)
Authors: Don Lattin
After interviewing family members, county social workers concluded that Phillip Slown had sexually abused Miriam from 1986 to 1990. In a March 4, 1998, report, the county also determined that Miriam's mother sexually abused her by “having sex in front of the child” and telling her that she should “show men God's love” by having sex with them. In her interview with child protective services, Donna denied she knew of any sexual abuse of her children. But she admitted that “there was a lot of sexual freedom among the adults” in Family colonies and “some people will make mistakes in large groups.”
10
“Flirty fishing is not against the Bible,” Donna told the social worker. “The Bible clearly states to love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Donna conceded that her children “did receive harsh discipline from Phil” and that Miriam told her Slown was sexually abusing her. She also told the social worker that she and Slown had some “real fights,” including one over him beating another one of his stepdaughters for wetting the bed. Nevertheless, Donna said, “It is hard for me to believe that he [Phil Slown] would sexually abuse the kids.”
Another alleged molester funded by The Family Care Foundation was mentioned in the lengthy child custody decision rendered in England in 1995 by Justice Ward. The decision names “Paul P.âJosiah” as a member of the sect's Music with Meaning team in Greece. “He corrupted and abused the young girls who were part of the singing and dancing troupe,” Ward writes.
Penn and other former members said Ward is referring to Family member Paul Peloquin, known in the cult as “Josiah.” One of his accusers is Celeste Jones, the girl who was with Merry Berg at the Music with Meaning camp. Peloquin was later funded by The Family Care Foundation for a project in Africa called “Focus on Kidz.” He could not be reached for comment.
Celeste Jones and Merry Berg were among the young girls filmed performing erotic dances at the Music with Meaning camp in Greece. “When I was five, we were already watching these videos being made of adult women dancing,” Celeste said. “Then one of the adult men would say, âOh. Why don't you do a dance for me?' Sometimes it was just play. Other times I felt uncomfortable. It depended on the person.”
11
Celeste was most uncomfortable with Paul Peloquin, one of the instructors and cameramen at Music with Meaning. “They'd have these orgies in an army tent at night. People naked and dancing. For me, the abuse didn't so much happen there. All of us would be running around and pinching the adults' bottoms and silly things like that. For me the abuse was in private. It was by Paul Peloquin. He was the main one. It went on until I was about ten to eleven years old.”
Corley said he was not aware of the abuse allegations against Slown and Peloquin. But Corley did acknowledge that Ricky was living at the foundation compound in the year 2000. “Ricky was never part of The Family Care Foundation,” Corley said. “He passed through briefly.”
Yet it was at the foundation's Dulzura headquarters in the summer of 2000 that Ricky first announced that he was leaving The Family. “After I got to the States,” Ricky would later write, “I decided to leave The Family and get a job. I didn't even know how to open a bank account or write a check, make up a resume or how to lie about having a high school education. It was very discouraging.”
12
He revealed his intentions to Jonathan Thompson, his roommate in Dulzura, about two weeks before he told Grant Montgomery. “I was not planning on leaving at the time. I was playing the role of the reformer,” Jonathan said. “We talked about Family policies we didn't agree withâlike restrictions on the kind of music we could hear.”
Ricky later told Grant he was leaving, and Grant called everyone to a meeting to announce the news. He talked about how hard and disheartening it would be for all the kids who'd grown up reading the “Life with Grandpa” stories.
Ricky had hoped to transfer to a Family colony in Mexico with Elixcia, who had gone to England to live with her father, one of the top Family leaders in Britain. Ricky talked his mother into buying a car so he could drive down to his new assignment in Mexico. She didn't trust him enough to just send the money, so she had Grant Montgomery buy the car and turn it over to Ricky.
Instead of taking the car down to Mexico, Ricky sold it and used the money to fly back to England and meet up with Elixcia. For a few months, Family leaders thought they might be able to keep Ricky in the fold. But before he left San Diego, the Prophet Prince began meeting
with some angry second-generation defectors. He was starting to see the toll The Family's teaching had taken on other people his age. In a May 2000 letter to his mother and Peter Amsterdam, Ricky wrote:
You are unable to see how you have hurt so many people's faith [with] prophecies that are not only ludicrous, but obviously the figment of some misguided person's imaginationâ¦. You're poking your finger in God's eye time and time again whenever you badger and condemn His little ones. One of these days God will judge you for it and when that time comes I certainly wouldn't want to be in your shoesâ¦.
There's a lot of lost and broken young people still out here in The Family who haven't left yet. They need love; they need acceptance. What they don't need is for someone like you to take them on some kind of guilt trip, making them feel worthless just because they're not “on board” with your pride tripâ¦.
I'm not looking for a fight with you, but if you push me, believe me, you'll have a nice one, and using the techniques learned by your example over the years, I guarantee it won't be “fair.” Just forget all that crap about me writing some kind of sniveling back-pedaling “explanation” to The Family about how committed I am now/again to your BS, because it's not going to happen.
13
Ricky and Elixcia had not officially left The Family, but they were clearly on the way out. In September, they flew to Venezuela to stay with Elixcia's mother and work out problems with Elixcia's passport.
“We found out later that the main reason the home [in Venezuela] agreed to let us come there was because they wanted us to take care of their kids,” Ricky explained. “After a while I wrote my mom and asked if she could send us $400 a month to help with our home and puppet show ministry. She agreed.”
In November, Ricky revealed that he was thinking about announcing for a second time that he was leaving The Family. He told Gabe Martin, a longtime Family insider, that he decided long ago that he would not take any leadership role in the organization. “I knew every
thing there was to know about jumping through the right hoops and playing the game correctly,” Ricky said. “But I had to act different parts and play different roles all my life, and I was just plain tired of it!”
14
One month later, in December 2000, Ricky gave the first indication that he might take violent revenge against his mother and Peter Amsterdam. He wrote in a letter to James Penn:
I am one of those people who have suppressed my feelings and emotions all my life. I didn't appreciate being treated like a commodity by my mother or having to swallow Peter's bullshit. But I tried to stay on the fence all these years because I just wasn't sure what the truth was, and I wanted to be sure before I went one way or the other.
These feelings of anger have not gone away, in fact they grew stronger even though I tried to push them away and sit on them. Now I'm beginning to get in touch with my emotions and feelings that I have hidden away for so long. To tell you the truth, I'm finding little love there, only hate for my mother and Queen Peterâ¦. Some days I have come so close to snapping and going back to their compoundâbut not for a social visit, and not as a repentant prodigal, but as an avenger.
15
Over the Christmas 2000 holiday, Ricky found respite house-sitting an old friend's place outside Vancouver, not far from where he'd lived during his teenage years. He planned to have Elixcia join him in Seattle, settle down, and start to live a normal lifeâwhatever that was. Ricky had made his final break, and he used the time in Vancouver to write his official resignation letter informing Zerby that he and Elixcia were leaving The Family.
We cannot continue to condone or be party to what we feel is an abusive, manipulative organization that teaches false doctrine. You have deceived people and led them away from the truth in almost every way imaginable, and worst of all, when they are no longer useful to you, they are discarded. You have devoured
God's sheep, ruining people's lives by propagating false doctrines and advocating harmful practices in the name of God, and as far as I can see, show no regret or remorse. I could talk for hours about it all, but what's the use? You'll never change.
16
Ricky knew that publicly denouncing his mother and Peter Amsterdam would end any financial assistance he had been getting. He learned that The Family had given “severance pay” to some insiders who left the fold. Some might call it “hush money.” Ricky decided he deserved the same. He asked for $36,000 so that he and Elixcia could “make the transition out of the cult.”
In his private resignation letter to his mother, dated January 16, 2001, Ricky reminded Zerby that he has “not shared the knowledge I have of the many wrongs and abuses I witnessed while growing up.
“I have not tried to make the talk-show circuit or sell my story to the newspapers,” he wrote. “I haven't tried to turn The Family or anybody else against you and that does not have to change. I see no reason why we can't work this out in a civil manner, but don't jerk me around, because this is for real.”
17
Ricky and Elixcia started getting a monthly stipend from Zerby. The money stopped coming in 2002. That spring, Ricky broke his public silence, wrote an essay entitled “Gospel of Rebellion,” and posted it on the Internet.
Berg used the Bible as a means to get what he wanted, and nothing more. Whenever something in the scriptures would conflict with what he wanted to believe or do, he would either twist it around, or simply reject it as being a personal interpretation of the author, or non-applicable in light of his special “End-Time Prophet” anointing. We were taught to accept his interpretations of verses as truth, and gloss over any scriptures that would cast any doubt on his beliefs.
Because of Berg's very small ego, he would slip easily to the depths of despair whenever he would hear any news report or read any article that had anything negative to say about him. He would get depressed for weeks at a time, and would drink
so much at night that Maria [Zerby] thought it was going to kill him. So Maria tried to protect him from any hearing about any “negative” publicity or news at all.
I think Maria realized maybe more than anyone else how little of Berg's beliefs and actions were actually based on the Bible at all, because she was the one who was closest to him. But of course, that didn't stop her one bit from doing anything she could to hold onto that power and control that they had over people.
18
About two weeks later, Ricky posted a second article entitled “Life with Grandpa” on www.movingon.org, a Web site for second-generation Family defectors. Much of that posting was about what happened to Merry and Davida and other girls in the Philippines.
[Davida] was put on Berg's “sharing schedule,” or “scaring schedule” as some people called itâ¦. Even as young as Davida was, she was still put on Berg's “scaring” schedule. She wasn't very happy about it, but because of her mother's prodding, pushing, and threatening, she consented. The fucker was just totally obsessed with sex! Thinking about it now, it's almost unreal!
Berg sometimes used the teen girls he had sex with to keep [Zerby] on her toes and get her to do what he wanted. For example, he would drink himself totally plastered at night, and because [Zerby] wanted to get some sleep and because she knew it was bad for him, she would try to ration the wine and get him to stop and go to sleep. It was a losing battle, but night after night, year after year, she kept on fighting with him about it
At different times during those years, Techi [Ricky's younger sister] and I would sleep in bunk-beds or walk-in closets adjacent to Berg's room with beds built into them. Berg liked having us there, but often he would be so loud that we would all be awake for hours listening to his drunken ranting and off-key singing.
19
Ricky had finally made the break from The Familyâand from his family. Now came the hard part. How would he deal with his rage
toward his mother? How would he begin to make it in the real world? Should he become a leader of second-generation defectors? Should he just move on? Should he track his mother down and get revenge?
Leaving home and family can be hard for any young person. All adolescents have some difficulties establishing their own identities, but imagine how hard that would be for someone who never had control of something as basic as his own name.
Someone Ricky trusted gave him some advice. “Get a life. Just live your life, and don't let these people destroy the rest of your life.”
Ricky tried. He got work on an Alaskan fishing boat. It was hellish labor, but he made some money. He and Elixcia got a little apartment in Seattle and tried to start a life.
His older friendâthe one from his mother's generationâsaw that he couldn't really do much more to help Ricky and Elixcia. All three had been in The Family. They had all been damaged. But there would always be a gulf between the adult members and children born into The Family. It was an emotional differenceâthe difference between guilt and anger.
“We're really not in the same boat,” his older friend explained. “We [the original members] joined of our own volition and built the system that oppressed these young people from day one. Our guilt and complicity in that can be overwhelming. What can you do to help these young people? You can't undo the harm.”
20