A federal grand jury in Michigan this week indicted two religious leaders accused of forcing their followers to do unpaid work.
David Taylor, 53, is the “Apostle” of Kingdom of God Global Church, formerly Joshua Media Ministries International, and fellow defendant Michelle Brannon, 56, is the executive director, the Justice Department said in a release.
Mr. Taylor was arrested in Durham, North Carolina, Wednesday, while Ms. Brannon was apprehended in Tampa, Florida, the same day.
Mr. Taylor first opened a call center to solicit donations for the organization in Michigan, then opened other centers in Florida, Missouri and Texas. He told followers he was “Jesus’ best friend,” that he had multiple direct encounters with God and that God gave him the keys to the “Kingdom on Earth,” according to the indictment.
The two are accused of getting people to work for the call centers unpaid and getting others to work as unpaid “armor bearers,” tasked with Mr. Taylor’s demands to drive women to his location and ensure they took emergency contraceptives, according to the indictment.
Call center workers and the armor bearers were coerced into living at the center’s facility or at ministry houses, the Justice Department said. Church employees were also forbidden from dating and subject to strict control of their personal lives, according to the indictment.
The employees also had to apply for government-funded EBT cards and hand them over, according to the indictment.
Mr. Taylor and Ms. Brannon are accused of punishing people who disobeyed or failed to meet monetary quotas with the promise of divine retribution, sleep deprivation, restrictions on their food and shelter, physical abuse, additional work, psychological abuse, public humiliation and forced repentance, the Justice Department said.
“They would come out and mow this big field here, with a push mow, and it would be from sunup to sundown pretty much all day,” Sean Aucoin, an employee at an electric business next door to a church facility in Harris County, Texas, told Houston’s KTRK-TV.
Between 2014 and their arrest on Wednesday, Mr. Taylor netted $50 million in donations that he and Ms. Brannon used on jet skis, all-terrain vehicles, a boat, luxury vehicles and luxury properties.
The two defendants are charged with forced labor, conspiracy to commit forced labor and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
If convicted, Mr. Taylor and Ms. Brannon would face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each of the two forced labor charges, plus up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the alleged money laundering transactions.
