Parents of Children of God members began to organize early on in the 1970s, and in 1973 finally got New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to ask then-State Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz to investigate the “extent of the various activities of the organization known as Children of God as its activities affect the public peace and safety.”* 

The Lefkowitz report noted a number of suspicious activities, some prosecutable (e.g., kidnapping, tax fraud), some not (e.g., brainwashing--a legal activity, at least in 1974 New York). They had a number of witnesses, including fourteen ex-members, thirty-four parents, six members who responded to subpoena, and a number of people who had direct contact with the group. They also had documentary evidence in the form of films, Mo Letters, and other cult publications. The problems they encountered stemmed from the lack of cooperation with anyone associated with the cult, and the group’s ability to move key witnesses in and out of the country.

David Berg made clear early on, in various publications and sermons, that the CoG would not recognize any legal authorities. He practiced what he preached almost immediately. In September of 1969, after police arrested twenty of their numbers during anti-war protests, the cult put up $34,000+ dollars in bail to secure their release. They then spirited them away to undisclosed locations. Because police could not locate the offenders (among them Berg’s sons Jonathan and Paul), the only thing they could do was keep the bail money and try them in abstentia.

The CoG would come to rely upon this tactic quite a bit in the future, especially after the cult went international. If US authorities wanted to investigate or question a cult member, the cult could quickly spirit her or him away to a distant location, most likely in another country. If authorities tracked them down to a specific colony/compound, other members could stall them, saying something like “We don‘t know who you‘re talking about. We never heard that name [which was quite possible, since everyone in the cult had an alias],“ or simply “We don‘t know where she/he is.” Meanwhile, the targeted person had ample time to escape from the back. And Berg felt quite justified using the stall-and-evade ruse, as he noted in a Mo Letter titled “Public Relations” (DO, 24 November 1971):

YOU MUST NOT INTERFERE WITH AN OFFICER WHO COMES WITH A MENTAL WARRANT—or you're in legal trouble! You can ask to see the warrant, make sure who it's for, and while you're stalling, someone else can inform the disciple involved, who then has a perfect right to run out the back door if he wants to! A mental warrant is not a warrant for arrest for a crime—so if he's supposed to be so crazy, who would blame him for running! This procedure has been very successful on a number of occasions! The tricky one is where they get the disciple away from you first on a supposed visit, and produce the warrant and the officer later when they have him alone! He can still try to run if he wants to—and certainly no officer's going to shoot him for that!—The parent wouldn't let him! [emphasis original]

From 1971, Berg made himself quite scarce, despite the fact that supporters had a difficult time contacting him. As the 1974 New York State Attorney General’s Office report stated, when addressing the matter of trying to figure out the cult‘s net worth:

Because Berg and members of his Family have been residing in Europe for the past several years, further efforts to obtain evidence of their net worth have been abandoned as an exercise in futility. Testimony of a large contributor that he had travelled to Europe in order to meet Berg and was unable to do so because Berg was always ‘moving about’ and not available, caused him to become disenchanted and to devote himself to ‘doing everything possible to expose these people’ for the irreligious libertines they have become.

Among other things, the Lefkowitz report determined the means by which the cult got money, and how they kept up with as much of it as possible. As expected, they got money from members, from member parents, from selling Mo Letters on the street, and from local merchants. Interestingly, the AG’s Office also notes that as early as 1974, the cult had received substantial donations from “businessmen,” who had donated as much as $75,000 to the group after they “flattered” him. Note that this coincides with the advent of FF-ing in late-1973.

Getting money was one thing. Keeping it was another. The CoG incorporated in Texas as a religious organization, but the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) didn’t see them as one, and ordered them to pay their full share of taxes. That also disallowed deductions for people who donated money to them. Yet, the CoG still claimed to be a tax-exempt entity and registered charity when soliciting money. Technically, they weren’t lying. They had set up a subsidiary corporation, Youth for Truth, Incorporated (YTI). The IRS, unaware of YTI’s connection with the CoG, granted it tax-exempt charity status. Thus the CoG could launder all it’s money through YTI, and not pay a red cent in taxes.

In case you’re wondering, Lefkowitz sent a copy of this report to the IRS. Still, the CoG could have just as easily started another tax-exempt subsidiary.

Kidnapping became a serious issue within the cult, as disaffected members tried to leave, but found it difficult to do so without their children and/or spouses. Even if a parent went to court and won custody of a child, that didn’t mean the cult would comply with the order. A good example of this: Berg’s son Paul, and his daughter-in-law Sarah. After CoG members kept asking him about how to have sex with an expecting woman, Berg instructed Paul to demonstrate with Sarah, at the time over eight months pregnant. Paul said “Yes.” Sarah said “No.”

Of course, women weren’t really allowed to say no in the CoG. Paul forced her compliance by whacking her in the stomach with a two-by-four. This induced premature labor, which required the care of an outsider “system” hospital. Upon her release, cult members incarcerated her and the infant inside a trailer, outside of which they posted a guard. They also took her first child, Nathan, from her. When the guard left his station for an extended period of time, she escaped, with the baby, and walked over six miles to secure help. She obtained custody of Nathan in 1973, after Paul’s apparent suicide. But when she asked CoG attorneys to assist in returning him to her, they told her that the cult didn‘t know his whereabouts. By that time, of course, he could have been anywhere around the globe.

Even if an ex-member managed to escape with his/her kids, the cult would sometimes kidnap the young from the parent‘s residence. In 1976, Una McManus left with her two children. Although she had legal custody of them, her husband, then still in the cult, abducted the kids with the help of other CoG members. The kids were never returned to her, but instead grew up in the cult. Like Sarah Berg, she could practically do nothing as the cult shuffled her offspring from one country to the next, so that local leadership could repeatedly say, “We don’t know where they are.” McManus subsequently won a $1 mill. lawsuit against Berg and the CoG in 1979, partly because neither Berg nor any CoG representative showed up to contest it. Berg’s response?

She had joined the Family & claimed that it had harmed her irreparably, psychologically & blah blah, & she went to a System court & that stupid idiotic damn Satanic diabolical System judge awarded her the million dollars damages. Do you think I paid?--Of course not! They can't find me!--But I'd better never go to Ohio! ...

But just because I didn't show up in court to face this judge & this silly little girl who was suing me for a million dollars, the judge awarded her the decision & granted her the damages!--Which they'll never collect unless they can catch me, & then they won't collect it because I don't have it!--Ha!

In a nutshell, these examples demonstrated how authorities fared when investigating, charging or even trying to convict Berg and members of his group. Step one was to evade the law by stalling for time, escaping, and outright lying. Step two consisted of maintaining an aggressive horde of attorneys.

Some people have alleged that a Step 3 required pressure on authorities by important people acting as CoG patrons. Gov. Rockefeller’s investigation produced a report, but nothing else. A number of other investigations by the US Senate, as well as the states of California and Vermont, also failed to produce convictions, or even formal charges. But even if they wanted to arrest a CoG member for a crime, according to these authorities, there would probably not be a good chance of locating the individual(s), let alone bringing them to court and actually trying them.

Some believe that the investigations served only to mollify parents and concerned relatives of CoG members. Through FF-ing and other outreach ministries, the cult had found financial and legal support from very powerful people in government and media. As this particular story thread goes, the investigations were certainly half-hearted, with very little effort to follow through on them, or bring charges against the cult.

______________
*From the report submitted by Asst. Attorney General Herbert Wallenstein presented to Lefkowitz on 30 September 1974.