ALBUQUERQUE — State police have removed four children from an apocalyptic church whose leader claims to be the Messiah and acknowledges having sex with followers.

The two girls and one boy — all under the age of 18 — were taken from the northeastern New Mexico compound in the days after an April 22 investigation, said Romaine Serna, state Children, Youth and Families Department spokeswoman.

"The information that I have at this point is that there are no other youths at the compound," she said Wednesday, adding there were at least 70 people there.

The children were taken into state custody because of allegations of inappropriate contact between minors and the adult leader of The Lord Our Righteousness Church in northeastern New Mexico, Serna said.

"I understand that it was very calm and they (state police) did not meet with any resistance," she said.

Serna declined to elaborate because of the ongoing investigation by state police and the district attorney's office.

Wayne Bent, 66, who is known in the church as Michael Travesser, is the leader of the church that moved to a ranch site called Strong City, north of Clayton off N.M. 370 in rural Union County, in spring 2000. He said God anointed him Messiah in July 2000.

Bent, on an April 27 posting, accused the state of kidnapping the children.

"My children are kidnapped because some demon wrote a letter to people in authority accusing me of some crimes," he wrote in a posting the next day.

In a 13,200-word discussion on the church's Web site, dated Sept. 11, 2007, Bent said his work is finished and he does not expect to be "in the earthly sphere" much longer.

He acknowledged having sex with three women — the wives of two of his followers and his daughter in law. He said it was at the direction of God and the instigation of the women.

"As of November 28, 2006, I had consummated with three persons: The first two were in the consummation of the Marriage of the Lamb, and the third one was the consummation of the plagues, which was the Consummation of Judgment," he wrote.

He wrote in an April 29 posting that the doomsday year began last Oct. 31 and that "October 31, 2008, is the end of this year of Jubilee."

"When the state came against our children (seed), the state came against God, and this will NOT ever be forgiven them," he wrote.

Jeff Bent, who Serna said is Wayne Bent's son, denied in an April 29 letter to Gov. Bill Richardson and posted on the Web site that any child had been abused or neglected in Strong City.

The group educates its children "to avoid the slavery you seek to impose on them, and to experience the freedom they have in God," Jeff Bent wrote.

"We have given everything to prepare them for an eternity with God. We haven't oppressed them with your atheistic globalist curriculum, socialist indoctrination, and 'alternative lifestyles' dogma that comprise modern public education. We have taught them higher values than the values of your slave-state, and have sought to shield them from the abuse that is institutionalized in your system," he wrote.

Serna said two of the children are in foster homes, one has returned to her parents who do not live at the compound and the fourth "agreed to voluntary placement, which usually means with a friend or relative who we believe can maintain the safety of a child."

The department will go before a state district judge within 10 days "to make our case for continued custody or alternate placement," she said.

No charges have been filed, Serna said.

She said her agency had been to the compound in 2002 "but had not received any current referrals or information that would warrant our intervention or law enforcement's intervention."

The agency received new information on April 21 that Serna said warranted the children's removal. She declined to reveal the information or its source.

The department "is assessing the safety of the children and we are assessing the role of the parents in the situation by virtue of neglect or abandonment — did the parents allow the children to be abused or be neglected," Serna said.

The children were removed three weeks after Texas officials raided a polygamist-sect ranch and took custody of 463 children, saying that group's practice of underage and polygamous spiritual marriages endangered the children.

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On the Net:

The Lord Our Righteousness Church: http://strongcity.info/




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