NYPost.com Andy Geller April 8, 2001 Elbert Eugene Spriggs was working in a carnival in Chattanooga, Tenn., when he says he heard the Lord ask him, “Is this what I created you for?” The year was 1969, and the answer was no. Within three years, the former high-school guidance counselor had created the Twelve Tribes,…
MSNBC.com March 13, 2001 Beauty company Estee Lauder could be facing another ugly controversy. The cosmetics giant recently angered actors when Liz Hurley crossed Screen Actors Guild picket lines to do commercials. Now it seems the company was unwittingly using child labor. What’s more, the alleged young workers were apparently part of a group that…
Jeffrey Brown’s trail of deceit extends beyond a Taunton home to Middleboro and Lakeville where he had ties to the New England Institute of religious Research. The Enterprise Newspaper Terence J. Downing Sept. 2ooo Air Force veteran Jeffrey F. Brown is charming, witty, intelligent, a super chess player, can fix just about anything and is…
Source: The Burlington (Vermont) Free Press From The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, June 18, 2000 By Nancy Bazilchuk ISLAND POND — John Dodge, 23, looked a little out of place at the Twelve Tribes church’s community gathering Saturday. An Island Pond native, he grew up calling the church members “Moonies,” threw pennies on the roofs…
Interview with ex TT member Cheryl Lewczyk and her mother Shirley Source: Twelve Tribes-ex.com The Buffalo News Gene Warner May 21, 2000 Cheryl Lewczyk was hooked. She was showered with attention, made to feel special and beautiful. In her mid-30s, she found a group of people who said they would love and take care of…
The Boston Globe Jordana Hatt 8/25/99 Lakeville – A nursing home that sits empty and ramshackle in farm country about 50 miles south of Boston is slated to open next summer as the nations first residential home for people who have left or escaped religious mind-control groups.The New England Institute of Religious Research, which says…
The Greene County News November 12, 1998 Mark Spoor Coxsackie – Mike Reichmann looks like any average 57 year old man. With his red checkered tie positioned expertly in a double Windsor knot over a perfectly tucked blue shirt and light khakis, you’d think his life was as normal as Joe Q. Public. But Reichmann…
The Asheville Citizen Times Dale Neal November 8, 1998 Twelve Tribes Community founder Elbert Spriggs’ controversial interpretation of slavery in the Scripture seems to provide ammunition for the anonymous fliers circulating around Asheville that criticize the Bible-based cult as racist. But a community member now in Asheville says the teaching is easily misunderstood, taken out…
Thoughts on Twelve Tribes Greene County News November 5, 1998 To the Editor: The Messianic Communities, called the Twelve Tribes, has moved into our County and seems to be anxious to “teach” us who and what their Communities are all about. They have held Open Forums now in several areas. “We need people to say…
SCRIBA – During the mid- 1980s, newspapers from coast to coast carried reports on court actions taken against the Northeast Community Church for the alleged beating of children as well as truancy. Ex-church members were coming forward with detailed accounts of how church children were being punished; stripped naked, boys and girls, from toddlers…