Part Two: Bishop David E. Taylor: Jesus Christ's Best Friend

Summary

Behind the Bastards – Part Two: Bishop David E. Taylor: Jesus Christ's Best Friend

Podcast: Behind the Bastards (Cool Zone Media, iHeartPodcasts)
Host: Brett [Robert] Evans
Guest: Jake Hanrahan (Popular Front, Sad Oligarch)
Release Date: October 30, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this gripping continuation, Brett Evans and guest Jake Hanrahan examine the bizarre, abusive, and predatory inner workings of David E. Taylor's "ministry": an ostentatious, exploitative religious cult recently raided by the FBI. The hosts dissect how Taylor preyed upon vulnerable people, fabricated divine connections for personal enrichment, enforced labor through deprivation and fear, and ultimately presided over a complex web of financial and sexual abuse, all under the guise of Christian spirituality. This episode is a dark but revelatory look at the mechanics of late-stage American cults—and their devastating impact on followers.

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Main Themes

• Exploitation & Abuse Under a Religious Facade: How Taylor’s claims of intimacy with Jesus and "kingdom-building" were tools for extracting money, labor, and obedience from desperate people.
• Cult Tactics Modernized: The use of multilevel marketing aesthetics, AI-generated propaganda, and aggressive social media outreach to attract and maintain control over followers.
• Mechanics of Coercion: Strategies Taylor used to keep devotees compliant—ranging from sleep and food deprivation to threats of homelessness and divine retribution.
• Financial Fraud & Grift: Deep dives into church tax fraud, welfare (EBT) abuse, and money laundering.
• Sexual Abuse & Trafficking: The scope of Taylor’s sexual exploitation, including revenge porn and enforced contraceptive use for trafficked women.
• Intersections of Religious Power and Legal Impunity: How tax-exempt status and public perception shielded Taylor and enablers for years.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Taylor’s Ministry: A Cult Disguised as a Mega-Church

• Taylor's business model revolved around promising desperate, sick, or grieving people direct contact with Jesus… for a price.
  • “[Taylor] will fill out a stadium… or one of these like almost like an MLM… and he and his top… pastors… will teach you… three-day lecture series on how to make personal contact with Jesus… [to] cure and save your sick or dying or dead loved ones. Right? Like that is the entire grift here.” — Brett (04:01)
• The social media PR machine was fueled entirely by unpaid cult members, working and living communally:
  • “David’s marketing people… all unpaid cult members… managed his social media and they would draw people to the call-in line with posts… Thousands are being healed of cancer through the life and ministry of David E. Taylor. Call 1-877-843-4567…” — Brett (05:21)

2. Aesthetics, AI, and Absurdity

• The “Miracles for the Maimed” event:
  • Ghoulish ads with Taylor posing amid crutches/canes, promising healing to the severely wounded.
  • “Look at that. It’s a photo of David E. Taylor holding 30 different walking canes and crutches… like he cured the maimed. So David E. Taylor’s just gotta take care of all this trash now.” — Brett (06:58)
  • “He went in really heavy with that, man.” — Jake (07:24)
• Use of poorly-rendered, AI-generated promo videos filled with gold, beds, and palace imagery. The hosts note the weirdness and disconnect with biblical minimalism:
  • “It does all look like Donald Trump’s living room.” — Jake (10:56)
  • “If you go by the book… Jesus was a pretty fucking cool guy… He was not into like loads of gold… he was into… helping people. Yeah. So silly, man.” — Jake (11:08)

3. Living Conditions & Internal Dynamics

• Cult members were housed in squalid, shelter-like conditions, kept hungry, tired, and poor—deliberately:
  • “It looks like a homeless shelter… they’re not living well… The cult had the money to give them at least separate little rooms… but this is part of the point. Keeping them in a situation that is like a homeless shelter is part of the point… to use as leverage.” — Brett (14:09)
• Sleep and food deprivation as leverage:
  • “No going to sleep until the Mosaic video was done… restricting sleep, it’s like always the lowest rung of just nightmare shit.” — Jake (16:02)
  • “That’s why sleep deprivation is… top of the cult leader tactics out there. Or at least tied with cutting off your family and shit for number one.” — Brett (16:12)

4. Sexual Exploitation and 'Armor Bearers'

• Taylor’s “armor bearers” managed everything from servitude to trafficking women between locations, including enforcing post-intercourse contraceptive use:
  • “Taylor’s so called armor bearers… were Taylor’s personal servants… handled everything from… waiting on hand and foot… to the actual nuts and bolts sex trafficking work.” — Brett (16:49)
  • “Anytime you sleep with him, you take a morning after pill, just to be sure.” — Brett (18:36)
• Abuse driven by blackmail (“revenge porn”).
  • “Your ‘assignment’ is you need to take, like, naked photos of yourself… so that… I have revenge porn on you.” — Brett (20:15)
  • “That’s so dark. To frame it as the assignment.” — Jake (20:38)

5. High-Profile Victims & Manipulation Tactics

• The case of gospel singer Vicki Yohe:
  • “He starts calling her his spiritual daughter… She feels drawn to him and does consent to starting a sexual relationship… But describing women he wanted to fuck as his spiritual daughters was a tactic.” — Brett (27:19)
  • “He preys on women. He does not honor women. Women are just a vagina. And that seems true.” — Brett (27:36)
• “Spiritual daughter” language normalized abuse/manipulation within the cult’s twisted context.
  • “A lot of cults do that… recontextualize words… it’s just everything is on a different planet by that stage.” — Jake (28:18)

6. Financial Crimes & Welfare Fraud

• Massive tax fraud, tolerated for decades due to the church’s legal immunities:
  • “He lives in an apparent lavish lifestyle and appears to use the church account as his personal piggy bank. In his deposition, he says… he lives off gifts that are personally donated to him, which do not count as a salary.” — Brett quoting Trinity Foundation (37:06)
• Welfare (EBT) fraud instead of using church donations to feed followers:
  • “Members then allegedly pooled the cards to an appointed designee who would shop for everyone… Every person had to have an EBT card, a food stamp card… they said if you don’t get one, you’re not going to eat.” — Brett (40:38)
  • “You’re already so fucking rich. Why even risk getting into this trouble… do they think they’re untouchable?” — Jake (41:59)

7. Coercive Control: Food, Shelter, Sleep, and Threats

• Explicit threats via text to withhold food and shelter to enforce quotas:
  • “You’ll have to raise $164,000 today. Each hour you fall behind, consequences will start. We will mess with the food. You will fast from the regular food or abstain for a while… Those who do not push their calls and closing numbers… don’t eat dinner at all. …They are going to the homeless shelter.” — Brett quoting indictment (42:50, 45:40)
• Forced fasting, sleep deprivation, isolation, and medical neglect used systemically to maintain submission.

8. Cult Maintenance & Expansion: Social Media, Cold Messaging, and 'Miracles'

• The cult’s growth mechanism involved a well-orchestrated PR/social media team spamming thousands daily:
  • “They’re just going through the Facebook pages of David Taylor… seeing who is liking each of the posts, and then they’re just messaging people… send something like a thousand messages a day.” — Brett (59:11)

9. Physical Abuse and Internal Policing

• Eyewitness accounts of Taylor physically assaulting followers, acting as judge, jury, and executioner over every aspect of their lives:
  • “[Taylor] just started going off on one guy and just started slapping him… slapped them across the face, pushed them to the ground, sat over them.” — Quoting Chris Sorensen (60:42)

10. Legal Impunity and Slow Justice

• Despite years of fraud and reports to police, Taylor’s grift flourished until the recent FBI raids:
  • “This cult, he brings in $50 million in less than a decade just from donations to the… You can feed people.” — Brett (41:47)
  • “The primary church banking account had over $41 million in it.” — Brett (67:20)
  • “The FBI raid revealed 57 victims of forced labor living in the Florida mansion. …They have are being charged with quite a few different felonies right now.” — Brett (65:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Miracle Marketing:
  • “He’s got a white suit that’s chased with gold filigree and… Miracles for the Maimed with DAV David E. Taylor… We’re meant to take from this… he cured the maimed. So David E. Taylor’s just gotta take care of all this trash now.” — Brett (07:03)
• On Maimed as Marketing:
  • “Maimed is pretty heavy. …if you’re like, ‘Oh, I can’t walk very well’ to be maimed, you’ve been pretty fucking badly hurt.” — Jake (07:24)
• On Sleep Deprivation:
  • “That’s why sleep deprivation is like probably like top of the cult leader tactics out there.” — Brett (16:12)
• On 'Spiritual Daughter' Grooming:
  • “I just don’t get how calling someone, your spiritual daughter works as a flirtation method.” — Brett (27:51)
• On Tax and Welfare Fraud:
  • “You’re already so fucking rich. Why even risk getting into this trouble for this kind of thing, you know… Do they think they’re untouchable?” – Jake (41:59)
  • “I think they almost feel a sense of disgust at the idea that they might spend any of their money on other people.” — Brett (42:16)
• On Narcissistic Control:
  • “He thinks he’s God.” — Jake (43:53)
  • “Or the devil maybe.” — Brett (44:19)
• On Physical Abuse:
  • “He just started going off on one guy and just started slapping him. …He went after another, slapped them across the face, pushed them to the ground.” — (60:42)
• On Legal Impunity:
  • “If you do it with a church, it’s not a crime.” — Brett (38:04)
• On the Scale of the Grift:
  • “125 pounds of super colossal red king crab legs… Mercedes, Bentley, Rolls Royce, … at least four bulletproof automobiles… It's a little unclear which to me based on how the indictment's written. But yeah, do you ever think great stuff?” — Brett (67:20)

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Highlighted Timestamps

• Miracle Crusade Pitch / Social Media Grift: (04:01–05:49)
• Miracles for the Maimed & PR Aesthetics: (06:16–07:53)
• AI Schlock & Jesus’ Gold Palace: (09:42–13:29)
• Living Conditions, Sleep/Food Deprivation Enforced: (14:09–16:33)
• Armor Bearers, Sex Trafficking, Revenge Porn: (16:49–20:54)
• Case of Gospel Singer Vicki Yohe: (25:09–28:49)
• Massive Tax Fraud, Welfare Fraud Explainers: (37:06–42:13)
• Explicit Food/Shelter Control as Punishment: (42:50–46:26)
• Testimony of Chris Sorensen, Cold Outreach Mechanics: (57:24–59:11)
• Physical Assault, Cult Policing: (60:21–62:45)
• FBI Raid and Legal Fallout: (64:25–68:22)

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Tone & Style

The hosts blend investigative reporting with dark humor, incredulity, and a sense of moral outrage, exposing the banality and grandiosity of this brand of American religious grift. Jake’s British brusqueness and Brett’s deeply-researched asides lend the episode both credibility and a sense of bleak amusement at the unending creativity of exploiters.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive anatomy of David E. Taylor’s cult: from the mechanics of his exploitation to the slow grind of justice and the enduring, aggravating protections provided by U.S. law to such organizations. As Jake observes near the end:

"It's not even one of the big [cults], you know, like how many more of these are going on right now? That is what worries me, man." (66:08)

And Brett’s closing sentiment is even more pointed:

“If only I gave up my soul entirely. The amount of money I could be making. Holy shit.” (68:47)

A sobering, occasionally sardonic, and always illuminating look into the American “prosperity gospel” at its most toxic and predatory.

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Listen to the episode for the full arc of grift, trauma, and (finally) accountability.

Transcript

[Brett Weinstein]

Call Zone Media. Oh, welcome back to behind the Bastards. That's the podcast that this is right now. And yeah, we're talking about the kingdom of God, not the. The kingdom of God is in the thing that people believe exists, but the kingdom of God is in the cult that the FBI just raided. Back with me as my guest, journey, Jake Hanrahan, the host of Popular Front and a podcast on our network, Sad Oligarch. Jake, how you doing?

[Jake Hanrahan]

Good. I'm good. I'm ready to learn again about Jesus and his pretend best mate and his.

[Brett Weinstein]

Pretend best friend, David E. Taylor. Yes, that is. I've never heard anyone claim to be Jesus best friend. So he's at least, you know, creative, a thinker.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, not since like the Bible, you know, Right.

[Brett Weinstein]

I don't even think anyone in the Bible had the balls to be like, nah, he's my best friend. That is true. That is true.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

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[Jake Hanrahan]

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[Brett Weinstein]

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I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her.

[Brett Weinstein]

Wait a minute, Sophia, how do you know she's a cult leader?

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime Podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I tried to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult. Hold up A real life cult.

[Brett Weinstein]

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[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brett Weinstein]

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[Jake Hanrahan]

90 years for killing somebody I have never seen.

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[Brett Weinstein]

About your bottom line. Listen to the big Take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So by 2019, David E. Taylor's ministry had found and thoroughly expl explored its sweet spot. Finding desperate people who were either sick themselves or who had ailing loved ones and promising to convince God to solve their problems for a price. He had different courses of lectures in which he would walk. And these are like, you know, one of his big money making things is he'll have these huge, he'll fill out like a stadium or whatever or one of these like almost like an mlm, right where they'll rent out these huge public speaking spaces and he'll he and like his top, he has a couple of pastors that work under him will teach you right for like they'll do like a three day lecture series, you know, on how to make personal contact with Jesus and then how to use your newfound friendship with Jesus to get stuff primarily to cure and save your sick or dying or dead loved ones. Right? Like that is the entire grift here is that I will teach you how to meet Jesus so you can get favors from him. It's what specifically like saving your loved one favors David's marketing people who are again all unpaid cult members working and living together in these giant warehouse spaces that he's bought across the country, managed his social media and they would draw people to the call in line with posts like this. And this is a July 2019 Twitter post from David E. Taylor's account. Thousands are being healed of cancer through the life and ministry of David e. Taylor. Call 1-877-843-4567 for more information. You'd think I don't know. This is the part that I have trouble getting my head into is somebody who's like, well, yeah, this must be how getting cured works. This must be how God works is like I have to call a call in line to get in good with this one dude who has the connection to the on high. That's the part where I'm like, man, I just don't, I just don't get that. I don't get believing that. That's, that's such a stretch.

[Jake Hanrahan]

He doesn't even really come across as particularly charismatic. Like, you know, there's, other than his, like, I mean, let's be honest, pretty dapper outfit there. Doesn't seem to be like that much new to what they're doing other than maybe the aesthetics of it. But yeah, no, it's, it's. I guess it's just preying on, you know, a very. People are very loose end. But still plenty of cults do that. But I guess this one took off.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah, I mean that, that's really what it comes down to is that like this is. And it's just, it's just so blatant. Yeah, to an extent that is, is sometimes funny. It's usually more sad than funny. But when you go through kind of the post this dedicated PR team is putting together, they're throwing together advertisements for like big in person events, one of which was called Miracles for the Maimed. And I'm just gonna show you the ad image that they had here because it's a special one. Look at that. It's a photo of David e. Taylor holding 30 different walking canes and crutches. Like he's just got dozens of them in his hands.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, I mean, he's inventive if nothing else, you know.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah, he's got a white suit that's chased with gold filigree and. Yeah, it's Miracles for the Maimed with DAV David E. Taylor. For with God nothing shall be impossible. I think we're meant to take from this is that like. Well, all these people who came in needing crutches and walkers and canes don't need him anymore. He cured the maimed. So David E. Taylor's just gotta take care of all this trash now.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I mean, the thing is though, like, maimed is pretty heavy. Like if you're like, oh, I can't walk very well to be maimed, you've been pretty fucking badly hurt.

[Brett Weinstein]

You've been maimed.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, yeah. It's like he went in really heavy with that man.

[Brett Weinstein]

Very funny.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Well, not funny for the people, but the images.

[Brett Weinstein]

Incredible.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I'm not gonna lie. I really, really like the aesthetic of it, it's very like 2000s era, but just with the added caveat of being like a weird God cult.

[Brett Weinstein]

It's great, right? Yeah, it's a special picture. And when I saw that beautiful image, I had to know more. So I found one of David's YouTube channels that still hosted the Miracles for the Maimed video. A lot of his stuff's been taken offline since the FBI raid. And so I found this is like a stream of one of his speeches. Right. Or one of his events. I told you that. He goes up on stage and he'll do these multi hour long talks and you can find this whole video online on YouTube. It's called Miracles for the Maimed with David E. Taylor. From his David E. Taylor Miracles in America stream. This one has 741 views. It was streamed eight months ago. So we're not talking about a massive channel. But clearly I think he's filling these in person rooms because he's got like the image I just showed you of him with all the crutches that was like a billboard advertising this thing for weeks. And so people who just didn't know much about David E. Taylor showed up to see him speak and give his like. Cause this is part of his global Miracles in America crusade against cancer. So it's. Yeah, this is appealing to some number of people who are like desperate as a result of their fucking horrible cancer and they show up in person. And this is how I think this is like in the YouTube video. This is just like what starts the stream off is there's this weird AI generated intro video. I'm guessing it was also the intro video that played at the symposium or whatever it was like before David got on stage and started talking. But let's just watch this piece of AI generated cult schlock together. Take America. A nation formed by God, destined to.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

Be a light to the world. But for centuries darkness has fought to claim its soul.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I've kept them bound, chasing wealth, power and pleasure.

[Brett Weinstein]

The guy talking just looks like a ring race.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It's like Assassin's Creed is.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. Yet in the hour of her greatest peril, Heaven. Not sure what president that's supposed to be. From the throne of eternity, the king of kings beheld the plight. Now I'm gonna stop us right here because this is. I mean it's just weird AI schlock. But what's interesting to me is Jesus's room. Cause at the point at which we stopped it, Jesus is like walking around in this like gold chased room. And there's like 30 beds in it that are just empty. Like Jesus. The dozens of beds is weird to me. Like, why does Jesus need that many beds in his room? What is Jesus doing that requires all of those beds? Does Jesus keep a harem? Because I don't know why else you would have that many beds.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Also, like, everything is gold plated, gold gilded.

[Brett Weinstein]

It does all look like Donald Trump's living room. Yes.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah. Think what you want about religion. I mean, if you go by the book or whatever, if you believe it or whatever. Or you like the story or whatever. Jesus was a pretty fucking cool guy. Like, he did some pretty cool shit.

[Brett Weinstein]

He wasn't into gold. Right.

[Jake Hanrahan]

He was not into like loads of gold. He was into like looking after lepers and like, you know, helping people. Yeah. He wasn't like, get me gold everywhere. Like, it's so silly, man. Fuck.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. Definitely one of the, I think unargued things of the text of the Bible is Jesus was not a huge fan of fucking palaces. Not a big palace guy.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah. Anyway, yeah, Jesus not known to be a palace guy. Definitely not.

[Brett Weinstein]

So. Yeah. And what's fun here is obviously that's all AI generated, right? Like, it's very obviously AI generated. So what you've got here is unpaid human trafficking victims using a plagiarism machine to make Hollywood style trailers in order to scam sick people out of their money. It's pretty cool.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It's. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's like. I mean, I always say the reason that, well, in my opinion that I feel like Black Mirror is just terrible now is because real life, and I know there's such a hack thing to say, but it is so true. Like these real life scenarios are just pure Black Mirror episodes, really, you know, and here we are.

[Brett Weinstein]

I've had the same problem where, like when I first started watching the show 10 years ago or whatever, it was like, oh, wow, this seems like something that could happen. And now it's like, well, this is. I mean, yeah, we're here and it's actually slightly less upsetting than the real thing.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. What I wouldn't give for a San Junipero. That's not what we're getting at all.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, right. Instead we have like Jesus gold plated harem room to cancer patients out with their money.

[Brett Weinstein]

Fuck palace. Yeah, yeah, exactly that.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, it sucks.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. Now again, I also think it's kind of interesting and I. There's a part of me that's like, should I analyze Jesus having all those beds More because David E. Taylor also owns a mansion with a lot of beds in it and was definitely running a sex cult. But also, there's no way they prompted it to look. That's just what the AI thing came up with, I'm guessing. I'm sure they didn't specify he should have dozens of weird beds in his mansion. They were just like, Jesus in a palace looking out a window or something. That would be my assumption, but I don't know. It's weird how directly, again, it grafts to the actual cult that David E. Taylor is running, which has a bunch of mansions with dozens of beds in them. Right.

[Jake Hanrahan]

And sometimes they do do this thing where they kind of, you know, hide in plain sight. Like, oh, yeah, put that in there. Or maybe it's to make people, when they watch that they're not so shocked when they actually find not the real thing, because he's obviously not in heaven and he's not Jesus, but, you know, something similar maybe make them not not so shocked. I don't know.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. I can't tell you for certain. What I can show you is what the actual living spaces in his cult facility looked like, what the actual beds that his cult members are in, these giant warehouses where dozens of them are living at a time. And it looks like a homeless shelter. Right? Like, they're not. You can see here they're not living well.

[Jake Hanrahan]

That is horrible. What is that?

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah.

[Jake Hanrahan]

So for anyone listening, it's just like, tents inside, like, people sleeping on. Oh, it's horrible.

[Brett Weinstein]

That tent looks like a homeless shelter. I'd say, like, that looks like maybe an okay homeless shelter or like. Yeah, like a FEMA shelter. People just got forced out of their homes, and you're quickly making space for them.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It's that white tent, though, like, that is creeping me out. That was like, some kind of weird medical. I don't know. Yeah, it looks weird.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It's like, for a homeless shelter, like, it wouldn't be bad at all, but, like, that medical tent is creeping me the fuck out. But, yeah, right. The AI is definitely. Yeah, definitely a lot different judging it up.

[Brett Weinstein]

And these people are. Again, they're bringing in millions of dollars a year for him. Like, tens of millions over the course of the time they're doing this. The cult had the money to give them at least separate little rooms. Right. Like, even if you're not wanting to pay these people because you're an evil cult leader, they didn't have to live like this. But this is part of the point. Keeping them in A situation that is like a homeless shelter is part of the point. Because one of the threats he has against them as leverage is, I will make you fully homeless if you don't do what I say. Building to that. But that is kind of what's going on here. So thanks to the federal indictment, we also have full records of several years worth of text messages from Taylor to his followers and to his top lieutenants who are helping to run the cult. So we do actually know directly how he incentivized and managed his PR team. The guys who created that, that crutch image in the video we just watched when they fell behind on producing stuff like that. For example, on October 6th of 2020, Taylor's second in command sent a text mess media team which warmed media team. No going to sleep until the Mosaic video was done. That was another ad for like one of these events that they were doing. And I tried to find no going to sleep. No going to sleep. The grammar's not great.

[Jake Hanrahan]

That's so dark. No, no, it's just like the whenever, like people are restricting sleep, it's like always.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yup.

[Jake Hanrahan]

The lowest rung of like just nightmare shit.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. Because like, that is the. I mean, the things that I have been willing to do because I've been exhausted and unwilling to. I don't have the energy to fight you anymore. Like, it's. That's why sleep deprivation is like probably like top of the cult leader tactics out there. Or at least tied with cutting off your family and shit for number one. Like, it's really big.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It's why, like, you know, the CIA were doing it when they were torturing people in Abu Ghraib. Of course, same diff, same thing. Because it's just if you're that exhausted, you'll be like, yeah, whatever, sure, I did this, Whatever, please let me sleep. It's just so harsh.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. And that does explain a lot of the. God, why are people putting up with this? Well, because they're exhausted and starving and like, you've gotten them to a point where they're not making anything that can be even like sort of described as a rational choice. Now, I have not found the Mosaic video that he was talking about in that text message, but the indictment gives a very clear idea of how the cult was organized. At the top of the slave hierarchy were Taylor's so called armor bearers. This is the title he gave to his like, top slaves. These are not the loot because he also has some people who are getting money who are sharing in the top of the cult. Right. Including like his. His romantic partner and a couple of these pastors working for him. And they're at the top, top of the hierarchy, but kind of the top of the slave hierarchy are the armor bearers. And here's how the FBI describes them in their indictment. Armor bearers were Taylor's personal servants who fulfilled Taylor's demands around the clock. Taylor and Brannon. Brannon, being his, like, number one, controlled every aspect of the daily living of their victims. They are not allowed to go anywhere without permission, and they sleep in the facilities where they work or in a ministry house. Armor bearers handled everything from the standard waiting on hand and foot of Taylor and Brannon and the other couple of people leading it to the actual nuts and bolts sex trafficking work that David E. Taylor required of them. Per the doj, Taylor demanded that his armor bearers transport women from ministry houses, airports, and other locations to Taylor's location and ensured the women transported to Taylor took plan B emergency contraceptives. So not only are these armor bearers trafficking women for him from different cult compounds or like bringing them in when he manages to ensnare a young woman online or something, because he has these people, it looks like they're flirting for him sometimes. Some of it he must be doing himself. And these are women maybe who are more prominent in the evangelical community, like Christianity. Female musicians and stuff who have, like a degree of solidity that's a big target, but also just a lot of when a female cult member fancies his eye, he'll bring them in. And these guys are trafficking them and giving them morning after pills. Right. Which seems to be the standard is that anytime you sleep with him, you take a morning after pill just to be sure. Right. I'm guessing both because he refuses to wear condoms and because the cult just didn't want to take any chances.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It always gets so disgusting, doesn't it?

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. I mean, I don't even feel like it's worth bringing up. I'm sure these people, this cult, had a hypocritical attitude on whether or not morning after pills should be legal, but it almost feels pointless to bring that up when we're talking about crimes of this magnitude. Like, of course they're hypocrites. Right? Of course. Yeah.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Of course.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. The women brought to Taylor seem to have mostly been female cult members, but again, he flirted heavily with these female Christian pop musicians and recording artists. We'll talk more about that later. But in order to keep. Keep any of these ladies from speaking up and doing Damage to his ministry. Taylor and his top lieutenants also operated what can be accurately described as a revenge porn ring. Right. That's how they, like, kept these women from coming out. And I'm going to quote now from an article on Detroit local foreign news. Court documents claim that Taylor frequently solicited and received sexually explicit photos and videos from multiple female workers for the organization. There were thousands of sexually explicit photos and videos. Officials said one of set of photos found on the phone of Taylor's second in command were sent by a female worker, an unpaid worker, mind you, who cried when she handed them over and apologized for having been late in completing the assignment, which she said she understands that she needed to do and can't delay. Right. This is your assignment is you need to take, like, naked photos of yourself or whatever and send them to me so that, like, I have. Yeah. The ability to. Yeah, I have revenge porn on you. Yeah.

[Jake Hanrahan]

That's so dark. To frame it as the assignment. Like, you're gonna basically get yourself in a position that's going to be, you know, you're going to be even more malleable, and it's your assignment, like, from God. Like, oh, it's just evil.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. I mean, evil's the right word for it. And you know what's not evil, though? I mean, they might be. I can't promise that one way or the other. But here's some ads.

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[Brett Weinstein]

So, like, it was kind of a.

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Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader?

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[Brett Weinstein]

Hold up Sophia. A real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue.

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Well, she needs to report them asap.

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[Jake Hanrahan]

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[Jake Hanrahan]

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[Brett Weinstein]

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[Jake Hanrahan]

And we will cap it off with Horror Movie Battle Royale. Jason versus Freddy, Michael Myers versus the Alien Thing with the Little Tongue Monster. October.

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[Jake Hanrahan]

The Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

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[Brett Weinstein]

And we're back. Okay, so we're talking about the sex trafficking. David's most prominent alleged victim and the woman who's given us the most details about how this process worked was a gospel singer named Vicky Yohi. And prior, this is like, she was. Is fairly prominent within, like, the world of Christian pop music. Prior to meeting Taylor, Yohi was a Dove Award nominated musician. And you probably haven't heard of the Dove Award because it's not like it's not a big deal in like, the real world, but within this kind of community of like, Christian, like, musicians and stuff like that who like, specifically make like worship music and stuff, it's a pretty big deal. It's like their Grammy. Right. So she's not like a celebrity in normal world terms, but she's famous within, like the evangel, like the Pentecostal and the charismatic chunks of the evangelical community. Right. So she had a lot going on before she got caught up with this maniac. Which is important because it means that when she decides to leave, when she realizes what he's doing, she has the resources and clout to actually escape. And that's why she's able. She gives us a lot of details about this guy because she's able to, like, she is not leaving the cult and having absolutely nothing, being completely broke, basically homeless. So she has some. Some ability to actually fight back openly. And she has been for years, by the way. She came out a while ago and was one of the people who was first kind of detailing the actual extent of his abuse beyond just like tax fraud. Right. So he and Yohei met at a church event in 2017, and Taylor immediately, this appears to be part of his flirtation technique. He starts calling her his spiritual daughter. That isn't appealing. Doesn't seem like it should be appealing. Right. That's pretty upsetting, fundamentally. But she feels drawn to him and she does consent to starting a sexual relationship with him, which lasts about 16 months. So this does start consensually. They're both adults. She has the ability to say yes or no. She's not in the culture. And since coming out against Taylor, Yohi has repeatedly told reporters that this was a thing like describing women he wanted to fuck as his spiritual daughters was a tactic Taylor used. He used it repeatedly on the women that he went after. She claimed he preys on women. He does not honor women. Women are just a vagina. And that seems true. Sure. Like, that's. I don't doubt her at All.

[Jake Hanrahan]

No, no. She's such a horrible. I know, just disgusting.

[Brett Weinstein]

And I just don't get how calling someone, your spiritual daughter works as a flirtation method.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Well, no. Unless you're as depraved as he is depraved.

[Brett Weinstein]

Or again, you've drank so much of the Kool Aid of this weird extreme trunk of the religion that that's appealing to you. I don't know if we can fully get it. Not being part of this community, you have to almost have had. Right. They.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Have you seen Dog Tooth? Like, it's been a long time. But there's. There's like kind of a. I mean, I guess kind of a cult vibe amongst the family there. But they, they re contextualize words. It's. It's a little absurd to the point where, like, words mean completely different things there. But like, a lot of cults do that, right? Like, you know, in their world, it's like, no, it doesn't mean daughter like that. It means daughter like this. And it's like, look, no matter what way you look at it, it's fucked up. But in their world, like you say, it's just everything is on a different planet by that stage.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. And yeah, I think that that's exactly it. Right. And what you're talking about, that is another common cult tactic is the reframing of words in part because it creates a bond. It's the same. I've brought this up a lot, but it's the same way, like, if you and your friends are really into MMA or really into something like Warhammer or some video game, there's different terms that are used within the community or you're part of an online forum or something, and that creates a sense of bonding that. I know what this means when I say. And so do you. That's not unhealthy inherently. But the extreme version of that is an effective cult tactic, both because it makes people bond and it also cuts people off from the act when you do it extremely enough. And fundamentally, you can't understand what other people are saying and they can't understand you. That creates this kind of. That furthers this sense of isolation that's necessary for cults to work the way.

[Jake Hanrahan]

They work, you know, in group thinking and all that.

[Brett Weinstein]

Right, Exactly. Now, we've talked about the spiritual daughter flirtation method. His other way of appealing to the women that he wanted to go after was much simpler. And I'm going to quote again from the News Herald. According to Yohi Taylor made a habit of buying her Expensive gifts, including lobatine red bottom shoes, a fur coat, and a Jaguar sedan. During their relationship, she said some of the money for gifts came from jmmi. That's the church accounts, he said. God just spoke to him to bless me with a car, she said, so that money for my car actually came from Joshua Media Ministries? Absolutely. He says that. He doesn't deny that. He says yes. Our ministry blesses other ministries with vehicles sometimes. Now, if you're wondering is that tax fraud to give your mistress a card using church money, the answer is yes. Yes. Although in a way that isn't easy necessarily to prove or get done, right? This isn't the thing that gets caught easily. And in fact, most of the shit like this happens all the time with a bunch of different church churches in the US and it usually does not get caught, right? Churches are tax exempt, so they don't have to pay taxes on donations for the church to use to conduct its normal business of existing as a church. But that doesn't mean that churches and church pastors or other kinds of church leaders just don't ever have to pay taxes. For example, if your church pays a salary to the pastor or priest or whatever, they still have to pay payroll taxes, right? It's the same if they pay taxes to their workers, they still pay payroll taxes, right? Churches are not exempt from that sort of thing. Like that's just the way, right? Like it's one thing the church should. The church, for example, shouldn't have to pay. This is the way the law works. I'm not saying I agree with this or disagree with this, but the church does not have to pay like a property tax for their church to continue to exist as a church. But once the money is going, accounts as like a salary that you pay money on as normal, right? And so if you're paying the pastor millions of dollars to buy luxury cars and a private jet and live in mansions, that money's supposed to be taxed. But if the church just buys luxury cars and a private jet that are the church's property, then they can get away without paying taxes. It just so happens that the cult leader is the only one who gets to use them, right? And this is because it works. Usually, I think there's a degree to which, and this is Taylor has probably crossed the line because the IRS is after him. But you can get away with a lot in this regard, right? Like churches often do get away with a lot. No, that's not my private jet. It's the ministry's private jet. Right. But once you're buying your mistress a car, well, that's not the same. That's not a church expense. And so she is expected to pay. You should be paying taxes on that. Right? Someone should be paying taxes on these gifts. Right. Because you can't give gifts over a certain amount and not have them be taxed. You know, so there is a bunch of tax fraud going on here. Right. I'm both pointing out that there's a lot you can get away with as a church in terms of tax exempt stuff. And Taylor is, is constantly exceeding that remit. Like, he is absolutely committing tax crimes. It's just it takes a while for this to get caught. Because for one thing, the IRS is kind of scared of going after churches in the U.S. right? Because why is that? Well, for one thing, it's really bad pr. Whenever a Republican is in office, it becomes a lot easier for them to get away with this. But the Democrats, like administrations don't really want that kind of fight either because the church will always say, oh, this is discrimination. This is anti Christian discrimination. They're coming after me because of my faith. Right. And it's just easier to ignore it. And that is usually what happens. Right. And this is a part of the massive problem we have because these churches often, I mean, there's a lot that they often do. Like, it's incredibly common for churches to basically like expressly give political orders or tell the congregation, this is how you should vote. This is who you should support politically. And churches aren't supposed to be able to do that and keep their tax exempt status, but they do all the time because everyone's scared of pissing these people off.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Not to go too off track, but obviously you know about this. So would that be something that, like, for example, the evangelicals are doing with Trump? Obviously they, you know, the very pro genocide in Gaza. And I was just the whole time, I was like, why the. What the fuck is like, how do they have this much power? It's something like that. Is it?

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah, yeah. Because these churches have huge amounts of money and they put that money towards different. Like that is a lot of, like the right. A lot of the money that comes from the right does come from these, these megachurches and these megachurch leaders who have just buckets of cash. And it's also just. That's why it's such a fertile grifting ground is like creating a quote unquote church or calling yourself a pastor is. You can get away with a lot. And they're usually Scared to come after you. You know, this is not what the episode is about, but this, this happens constantly. Like Taylor. Taylor is weird because he crossed the line enough that he gets in trouble for tax fraud. Right. Which very rarely happens to these guys. Now, for his part, like a certain President Taylor claimed to have refused any salary at all. Right. That he's not getting any money for what he's doing. And this is the kind of thing that sounds good when you say it on stage to an adoring audience who aren't going to question you. But it's also the kind of thing that looks like tax fraud because it is. There's an organization called the Trinity foundation which monitors religious fraud and actually looks for stuff like this. And they published an investigation into tax fraud by David E. Taylor and the Joshua Media Ministries International in 2018. Right. So this, there has been evidence. And this is extremely detailed. I would call this like a like smoking gun, inarguable report, what they put out. I've read through the entire thing. It is excellent work. It's very. It's kind of wonkish because it's more focused. We're focusing on all of the fucked up abuse of human beings. They are focused on. Here is something he said. Here's an expense we know that was made. Here are the exact tax laws it violates. Right. So it's kind of dry reading.

[Jake Hanrahan]

But like how the. Like. Sorry, but in there, Robert. But like, I guess it's kind of in the way of like, I guess it's not a bad idea. Like, you know, like Al Capone, they went after his tax. Yeah. It's easier to get him on this. Right, right.

[Brett Weinstein]

And it's provable too. Right. Without anyone you don't need. Yeah, it's black and white. And you don't need someone who is like an abuse victim and traumatized to be willing to testify, which is hard to do. Right. You know, not making a moral judgment. It's just difficult to get people to talk when they've been through something like this for a variety of reasons. And you don't need that with tax fraud. Right. And in that report, the Trinity foundation says that, like, they consider. Whenever you hear that the head of a church is going without salary, that is a huge red flag. That's like one of their big warnings that fraud is going on. Quote, Taylor lives in an apparent lavish lifestyle and appears to use the church account as his personal piggy bank. In his deposition, he says that he lives off gifts that are personally donated to him, which do not count as a salary. And that deposition was from a 2014. He gets charged with tax fraud in 2014 and his church loses its tax exempt status for like a year and then gets it back almost immediately. But this part has been going on for a while. The tax fraud has been known for about a decade before he actually gets in any serious trouble, which shows you how hard it is. Even when they know there's tax fraud, to the extent that the IRS comes after you for it and takes away your tax exempt status, you can get it back the next year and nothing will happen. Right, because we just don't take these kind of crimes seriously in the United States.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It's like legal crime.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah, exactly. If you do it with a church, it's not a crime. Now that report also goes into one of David Taylor's grifts From November of 2018, a praise a Thon, where he asked his followers to donate to sponsor 300 new students who would be trained and brought into his ministry as volunteers. And I think the idea was that he would personally instruct these people in the art of talking to Jesus so that they could learn how to heal people with prayer. The Trinity foundation notes quote students. And this is them describing the pitch that Taylor was making. Students will be taught to do things even medical doctors and surgeons can't do. Oh dear, they go on. Oh dear, they go on. To summarize, he claims he provided housing, meals, clothing, hygiene, and training for them at a cost of about 150k for each student's first year, more if their entire family relocated with them. That comes to a total of 45 million requested for that project alone. Taylor claims that they will be provided more than even an accredited Bible college would and that many would receive a salary after completing their training. Now, this doesn't ever seem to have happened. No money was actually devoted to this program. I have found zero evidence that any of his followers were ever paid a salary after finishing their training. This was a grift at both ends. The donated money was not being used for the promised purpose. And the people that he did sign up as students weren't being given degrees and they weren't being given salaries and jobs. They were made to work at a call center and abused. Right? Right. Now, I know some of you may be wondering at this point, Robert, you said none of the donated money went to feeding or sheltering these unpaid volunteer students, but that can't be true, right? They had to have been. We saw where they were living. It can't be expensive. But clearly the cult was paying for beds and paying for food because these people weren't allowed to have jobs or money on their own. They would have starved if none of the don money went to supporting them. Right. And, well, all I have to say to that is, my dear friends, you've forgotten the sublime joy of welfare fraud, because that's how he's feeding these people. One of the main whistleblowers against JMMI is a former follower of Taylor's named Chris Sorensen. And we'll talk about Chris's journey a little later. But he's one of three former members who have alleged to the Tennessee News Herald that Taylor's culture fed its worker followers not using the tens of millions in donations, but via EBT fraud. Right. That's our. The car. If you're poor enough, you get these electronic benefits transfer cards that'll let you allow you to buy certain kinds of food and drink. Right. It's for people who will starve otherwise. You know, that's what EBT is for. Yeah.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I wondered for a long time what that was, actually. So it's like essentially like benefits so you can live if you lose your job or whatever?

[Brett Weinstein]

Yes, right, right, exactly. It's supposed to be. And the program doesn't work nearly as well as it should. It's gotten much worse in the last year because of cuts to it. But what it is supposed to be is that if you are. If you can't, basically you can't feed yourself. Otherwise. This gets you the benefits you need to keep you and your family from starving. And this is how the cult made sure that they didn't have to pay even a dime of their money to keep their people making the money working the call center alive. Quote from the News Herald. JMMI instructed church members to claim homelessness with the state of Michigan in order. Sorry, not. I said Tennessee earlier. It's Michigan. In order to get electronic benefits transfer cards, members then allegedly pooled the cards to an appointed designee who would shop for everyone at nearby stores. Every person had to have an EBT card, a food stamp card, Sorensen said. They said if you don't get one, you're not going to eat. So you have 50 people to feed, and one card will last one day. You'll totally empty one card on the whole entire staff, and it's not for you personally. It's to spend on the whole entire group. So you're not using your own card. I was in charge of it. I had to make an Excel spreadsheet of the Status of everyone's card. And we kept them all in this little trapper keyboard plastic box. It's just. And again, this cult, he brings in $50 million in less than a decade just from donations to the. You can feed people.

[Jake Hanrahan]

What I don't get is like, you're already so fucking rich. Why even risk getting into this trouble for this kind of thing, you know, it's just like beyond me. Do they think they're untouchable?

[Brett Weinstein]

I mean, they were for a very long time.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, true.

[Brett Weinstein]

Gets away with this for closing it on 20 years. And I think it's also with people like this, I think they almost feel a sense of disgust at the idea that they might spend any of their money on other people. You know, I really, I think that there's something pathological going on.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, definitely.

[Brett Weinstein]

I may be. Maybe I'm kind of reading into it a little bit, but like, I just, I don't know what else it could be, you know, and it's probably worth talking about here. How food and shelter were both used as weapons by David E. Taylor to keep his workforce functioning without complaint. His first line of defense was of course, threatening to damn people to hell or even have God harm them or their loved ones. But when the power of those threats started to wane, his reliable backup was promising to make people homeless if they resisted or failed to hit quotas. And I'm going to quote directly from the federal indictment here, honor about. May 5, 2021, at 12:26am, Taylor texted to DG, his current armor bearer, tasked with communicating his orders to staff whose identity is known to the grand jury. You'll have to raise $164,000 today. Each hour you fall behind, consequences will start. We will mess with the food. You will fast from the regular food or abstain for a while. Normally, as of now, there's a 21 day peanut butter and jelly regiment like before. Those who do not push their calls individually and as a team with the right amount of people and closing numbers at 6pm they don't eat dinner at all. If they do good afterward this time, then at the end of the night they may get a snack before bed, but not much. And this regiment will go on every day for 21 days until they obey. Take away the food, there will be other consequences. We must make them fast and pray. He uses two exclamation points at the end of each of those sentences.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I don't know why you can clearly. I think if you, if you are in the mindset where you'll you'll abuse people so much to the point where you're saying, yeah, like I can make your mother with cancer get better or your dad with AIDS or whatever. And then you get really, really rich anyway. It's like I think the whole psychotic element just gets compounded. And that's what it sounds like there. It's like he thinks he's God.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah, yeah. Or the devil maybe. I don't know.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, well that, yeah.

[Brett Weinstein]

On other occasions he enforced multi day fasts when call center workers couldn't make his impossible quotas. Sleep was also commonly withheld as a punishment, although it might be more accurate to say that Taylor structured his quotas in such a way that no one could make them, which was automatically punished by being made to work until 4am in addition, whenever the colt had trouble making its numbers, which was always, he'd schedule mandatory meetings which ran from three to six hours long. So if you're keeping track, this meant that anytime the money wasn't as much as he wanted, and it was never as much as he wanted, the staff was basically banned from sleeping almost entirely. Right. This is presented as a mix of punishment and strategy, but the overall goal is to make sure none of his full time workers ever get sleep because that keeps them in the state where they'll do whatever he says.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Like zombies.

[Brett Weinstein]

Like zombies. Here's the indictment again. On or about September 19th at 10:21pm, Taylor texted to victim DG Michelle and Kia. Make them all stand and tell them if the punishment to 4am don't work, I'm gonna make it worser and worser. They are going to get their beds out of my house and sleep in the garage. Everyone piled in there. This ruthless boot camp is going to get worse and worse until they do what we are telling them. There will only be soup, bread and water for all the degenerates every day.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Oh, the degenerates. Is that what he called them?

[Brett Weinstein]

The degenerates? Yes. Yes. Because they're not. They couldn't make $164,000 in a day like demanded. Wow.

[Jake Hanrahan]

You know, it's what Jesus would want.

[Brett Weinstein]

It's what Jesus would want. About a month after this, he sent another message complaining, I can't be kind to you, letting you start later and sleep in. Because members of the team had fallen behind again on his impossible quotas. All caps. Now, I don't care if you are tired, you've crossed the line. You're going to work all night and get up in the morning. I want the names of those who are not helping with this push or doing their work or showing change all caps, they are going to the homeless shelter. Right. So again, this is directly the threat is I have already reduced you to near homelessness. If you cross the line, you're out on your ass. Right?

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah. After taking everything you had anyway, you.

[Brett Weinstein]

Can'T even get ebt because we have your EBT card. Right. Like, you're already on it. You're right. Because you don't get that forever. Right. That's the other thing is that, like, these people are so comprehensively fucked.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I know. Like, obviously this is a cult and that's how it is, but it's also, I guess the two go hand in hand. But it's also like turning into a pretty evident kind of human trafficking ring. If they're, like, moving people around just to kind of be in what is essentially slave labor, Taking all their identity, their rights, making money off them. Like it's a serious criminal enterprise at this stage.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yep, Yep, absolutely. Now, in the federal indictment, former cult members alleged that Taylor would often threaten his victims by explaining the power God gave him, rebuking them for disobedience, and cursing those who stopped working for him or spoke negatively about him. In addition, the defendants required the victims to request permission to leave their housing or the call centers, and controlled their access to transportation. The defendants rarely permitted victims to seek outside medical attention. The defendants often denied victims medical attention altogether. In some instances, the defendants physically abused victims when Taylor was displeased with the actions or behavior of victims. Now, I noted at the top of these episodes that this cult was one of the ones that I have some trouble really understanding. So we should look into a couple of case studies of former members who found themselves wrapped up in Taylor's group and ultimately escaped. One local Houston news station, KPRC 2, interviewed a friend of a woman who joined the cult because she was groomed as a bride for Taylor. From the beginning, it was great, exciting, as they usually are, the woman said. But I kept warning her that something sounded like a cult. Her friend eventually cut off all communication, but returned a year later, revealing the mental and psychological abuse she endured. She said they starved her, mentally and psychologically abused her, and used scripture and hell to condemn her. The woman said it was almost like a loyalty program. They had to defend the top person and their ministry. And when her friend ultimately escaped, she didn't know what to believe, who to trust, what churches to trust. And this is where, like she says, that her friend restored her faith despite her trauma and found another church which is depicted as a positive end in the article. I can't help feeling maybe you needed a break from religion for a while, long while. Maybe like maybe a little while out.

[Jake Hanrahan]

There, you know, maybe for the rest.

[Brett Weinstein]

Of your life off of a religion. Yeah. And it's, you know, outside of. Cause we're talking again about how crazy all of this seems on the inside. I need to emphasize, unless you are paying attention to like the Trinity Foundation's reporting on their tax fraud and stuff, none of this is super obvious. There's not any mainstream news articles for a while. You get starting like a year a couple of years ago, you do get some local press about some of the allegations, but there's very little to find on these people. And they also seem to have some like fairly high profile backers. From July 31st to August 4th of 2019, David Taylor held a miracle crusade against cancer in Taylor, Michigan. And it featured like. One of the people who spoke at the event was Andre Geslowski, who's the chairman of an Israeli nonprofit called the Helping Hand Coalition that supports Holocaust survivors. Right. And I'm going to quote from the Trinity Foundations right up here. Gasierowski co founded the conglomerate Art B, which looted the Polish banking system. Then Gasierowski fled the country. He moved to Israel to avoid extradition. In 1991, the Washington Post explained the criminal enterprise. The company's founders discovered that a helicopter could move cash around Poland faster than the antiquated banking system could clear checks. Art B shuffled about 18 billion through the banking system, picking up an estimated 360 million in interest on money that was in several accounts. At the same time, a Polish court convicted Gasiaroski's business partner Boguslaw Bogcic. Radio Free Europe reported Bogcic was found guilty of cheating the Polish banking system out of 424 million zlotys, US$94 million, defrauding a bank, bribing bank clerks and carrying out financial misdeeds connected with his company, Art B. As of the year 2000, Polish investigators estimated that Bagsic may still have some 40 million abroad and Gasciarowski twice that amount. After moving to Israel, Gasierowski reinvented himself as a philanthropist, but failed to pay back the people he defrauded. JMMI is raising money for a partnership with Gasiaroski's Helping Hand Coalition, claiming to bring aid to thousands of impoverished Holocaust survivor Jews in desperate need. But it is impossible to know how much money is actually going to the Helping Hand Coalition. So on paper, this Guy's working with a foundation that helps an Israeli nonprofit that helps Holocaust survivors. Then you look into it and it's like, no, this guy defrauded the Polish banking system to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. And whatever he's doing now, this coalition, now that he's fled to Israel to avoid prosecution, is some kind of con. Right? It's a Holocaust survivor con. Like, he is stealing money from Holocaust survivors.

[Jake Hanrahan]

It doesn't get much fun.

[Brett Weinstein]

And David Taylor's helping. Yeah, that's about as bad as it gets.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, it's really bad. It's like the worst side hustle ever after already doing all the worst things he ever did. You know what I mean?

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah. And I'd love to know how that conversation starts. Like, hey, I hear you're into some really fucked up shit, David E. Taylor. You know, you're trafficking people, committing all sorts of sex crimes. How would you like to defraud some Holocaust survivors? You know?

[Jake Hanrahan]

And he was like, fuck, yeah.

[Brett Weinstein]

And it's weird. This fucking Gasiaroski, this weirdo is at least. I mean, he's in good enough odor with the Israeli government that they're not extraditing him. And also, I think it's through him, David E. Taylor gets commissioned as an official ambassador for Israel to America. It's not like the legally an ambassador, it's like an honorary thing. Right. But he gets stuff like this, you know, and he's working. He has this. All these different, on paper, humanitarian enterprises. The Refuge Homes project, which is supposed to rescue and find homes for children who have been sold into human sex trafficking. And there's all these different, you know, feeding the poor charities. He's supposed to be. The money that gets donated to him is supposed to go to, like, dig water wells and in poor places overseas, providing Thanksgiving and Christmas gifts to thousands of families. There's this disaster aid charity that's real called the Convoy of Miracles that he just, like, lied and pretended to be donating money to. They eventually, like, went to court because they were like, he's not. He's just using our name to steal from people. It's cool stuff. So, yeah, let's talk about. Well, actually, let's throw to ads first, because that's probably time for that. And then we'll. We'll close out this story.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

I've never done a live recording before.

[Brett Weinstein]

Podcasts.

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I've just never done it this week. On the bright side, Chrissy Teigen, like you've never heard of before. I think I showed the messy of life like even before kids.

[Brett Weinstein]

So like it was kind of a.

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[Brett Weinstein]

Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader?

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a Scary Story week on the OK Storytime Podcast so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I tried to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult.

[Brett Weinstein]

Hold up Sophia. A real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

But according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with her ceiling and her neighbors are not happy.

[Brett Weinstein]

Well, she needs to report them asap.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

She did, and now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time.

[Brett Weinstein]

So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not?

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Jake Hanrahan]

What's up everybody? This is Snax from the Trap Nerds podcast and we're bringing you the Horror every week all October long. Kicking off this month, I'll be bringing.

[Brett Weinstein]

You all my greatest fear inducing horror.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Games from Resident Evil to Silent Hill. Me and Tony bringing backfireteam on Left 4 Dead 2 and we just gonna.

[Brett Weinstein]

Be going over some of the greats.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Also in October, we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies and figuring out why black people always gotta die first. The Umbral reliquary invites any and all fooling brave enough to peruse its many curiosities.

[Brett Weinstein]

But take heed. All sales are final. Weekly horror side quests written and narrated by yours truly, with a full episode.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Read and a commentary special and we will cap it off with horror movie Battle Royale, Jason versus Freddy, Michael Myers versus the alien thing with the little tongue monster. October.

[Brett Weinstein]

We're doing it Halloween queen style.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Listen to the Traverse podcast from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead, the other tried for murder not once. People went wild, not twice, stunned, but three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts.

[Brett Weinstein]

To crumble and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

They sort of went nuts until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brett Weinstein]

And we're back. So the most detailed account we have from a former member is a guy named Chris Sorensen, who I chatted about a little earlier. Chris talked to the News Herald in 2019 after escaping, and he found the cult he got involved with. David E. Taylor's JMMI As a direct result of reading Taylor's 2009 book, Face to Face Appearances from the Ultimate Intimacy. Sorensen claims I got associated with Taylor. I know, right? That's such a fucking title.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Raises his head again.

[Brett Weinstein]

Uh huh. Sorensen claims I got associated with Taylor's ministry in January of 2015. That's when I very first heard of the guy. And I saw ads for his book saying, if you buy this book and you read it, you'll see Jesus. So I took the gamble. I bought it and I read it. And Chris's story is valuable because it illustrates the technical means by which Taylor utilized his followers to reach out and entrap new worker drones. Within days of finishing reading the book, Sorensen wakes up. He's just finished this, and there's a Facebook message from JMMI from Taylor's cult, written by someone and he doesn't know at the time, is written by someone living in a warehouse owned by the Cold in Michigan. And the message said, jesus told me to reach out to you. I was in prayer last night and I was drawn to your page to contact you. And Sorensen is like, oh, wow, I just read your book and now you're reaching out to me. I was so honored. You see why this would be effective, right?

[Jake Hanrahan]

Right.

[Brett Weinstein]

Someone has just and it feels like, well, how could they have known unless God told them right now, Sorensen, on the strength of this, because he's so overwhelmed by what's happened, and I was in a vulnerable point in his life, he joins the culture, gives himself up entirely, starts working on their Michigan property full time, and in short order, he's the one sending spam messages to people on Facebook. And so he realizes, oh, God didn't tell them to reach out to me. Right. What's actually happening here is that these call center workers who are expected to reach out to hundreds of people a day, they're just going through the Facebook pages of David Taylor and a bunch of other prominent televangelists like Billy Graham or Joel Osteen, and they're seeing who is liking each of the posts, and then they're just messaging people who have recently liked posts. So Sorenson must have liked the post about the book that he bought and read. And they see that and they reach out to him directly. That's the actual way in which they're kind of like picking people to cold call is like whoever's liking these posts from other evangelists, there's a better chance that they're going to be vulnerable to our shtick. And they're just messaging these people. Each individual, like call center worker is expected to send something like a thousand messages a day, most of which are copy pasted from a script. And even though these people are more likely to respond, most recipients of these messages ignore what they're being sent. But every now and then, someone like Sorensen would get a message at just the right time that it feels like something's happening.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Like cold calling for Jesus, basically.

[Brett Weinstein]

Right? It's like a cold reading kind of technique, but applied to, like, using social media and kind of some of these other dynamics. Sorensen told the News Herald. Quote, during his six months with Joshua Media Ministries, Sorensen also said that he was repeatedly told to leave his wife, who was skeptical of Taylor and jmmi. He said he also witnessed Taylor physically assault other JMMI members at their building. He recalled Taylor coming in late at night and yelling and screaming at seven men. He just started going off on one guy and just started slapping him. Sorensen said. He slapped him two or three times, knocked him to the ground, and then just grabbed him by the collar and shook him. He went after another, slapped them across the face, pushed them to the ground, sit over them. Sorensen said that four of the men were being corrected for smoking weed and two of them for interactions with females. The seventh happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, you know, this is just a guy who feels secure just physically abusing at random members of the cult. This is probably another part of, like, what keeps people in line is just, like, this fear of being beaten, of being targeted like this. Now, as is usually the case with cults, there were, as I've said, numerous red flags and signs that shit was wrong. Well, before the raids in 2014, they were audited for massive tax fraud. They lost their tax exempt status at least twice over the years, and in both instances, got it back after less than a year. Groups like Trinity published and directly mailed detailed reports about suspected fraud to the irs, but this did not create any kind of public outrage or knowledge of what was going on, in spite of the Fact that by 2016, local police in Taylor, Michigan, had received at least 30 calls about JMMI. Some of these were non issues, but others were complaints from friends and family of cult members. And in one case, there was a bomb threat made by a former member against the organization. According to the police report, the man was, quote, angry that God created him, but he couldn't kill God, so he would kill the pastor of jmmi. I mean, go for it, go for it. Fine, man. In this case, you picked the right guy. But there was no, like, there was no evidence that he actually did anything. And when the police responded, they're like, do you want us to search the church for anything suspicious or bring in a bomb dog? And church officials are like, no, you don't need to come inside. We're good.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Don't worry about it.

[Brett Weinstein]

Don't worry about it. In June of 2018, a former JMMI member reported an assault at the church. This woman said that she had been there five days earlier to see her father and sister, who were both members. And once she was entered, she was confronted by church members about her bad attitude and told to leave the church and then was forcibly pushed and pulled from the property. A few months after that, a father requested help from the police in getting his son out of the building. He told them that his son worked at the church, but he wasn't sure in what capacity. And police agreed to help, and they classified it as a mental health commitment. So several officers, like, showed up and waited for the son to come to his father's vehicle, and when they did, the officers handcuffed him and put him in the back of a patrol car. While this happened, several men in suits were filming outside of the building. So there's stuff like this going on for years. In 2017, a guy in his late 50s dies of natural causes during a prayer group at JMMI. And when police and firefighters arrived at like 2:15am they, quote, observed a group of people chanting and singing, touching and pressing down on the body. One witness told the police that when people prayed at the church, all of them faint under the light of God. She told police officers that the dead man was sleeping and God will wake him up soon. Police took the body. Obviously they found a stack of credit cards and ID and turned them over to his wife. And the cause of death was, you know, just heart disease. But like. Yeah, it's just one of these, like, like, oh, weird that instead of calling an ambulance, they're just like standing around this guy and trying to bring him back to life through prayer. Right? That's a little bit sketchy.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, it's like first responders, but they're just praying.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah, right. So anyway, that kind of stuff is around for a while until a little bit earlier this year, just really. A couple of weeks ago, an FBI raid cracks down on multiple properties, including the mansion in Tampa where one of the leaders lived, his second in command lived. That was carried out in August. And then later, there's raids on their Taylor, Michigan facility and a bunch of other different call centers, like five or six, all around the country. The FBI raid revealed 57 victims of forced labor living in the Florida mansion. So that's just one of the buildings. I don't think we know entirely how many victims have been found yet. And I don't think they're fully done with the raids at this moment. Right now, David Taylor and Michelle Brannon, his second, are accused of running a forced labor and money laundering scheme through their church. They have are being charged with quite a few different felonies right now. So we'll see what actually happens. Like, I don't know how much it's worth kind of going into the details of the legal case against them, but they're looking at some pretty serious charges. Right. And hopefully they won't be free again, I guess. Guess it's one of those things that it does seem like they flew too close to the sun and the FBI has them kind of dead to rights here. I'm not optimistic about their chances of getting out of any of this.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Jesus is definitely not his friend anymore, for fucking sure.

[Brett Weinstein]

No, not his friend anymore. So at least we've got kind of a happy ending. Right?

[Jake Hanrahan]

It's crazy, though, when you look at this like, okay, this is obviously huge, making loads of money money, just horrible levels of abuse. But it's not even one of the like big ones, you know, like how many more of these are going on right now? That is what worries me, man. And yeah, I will say as well, I do, I, I'm not religious. Like, I'm not an atheist, but I'm not religious. But I do hate how these cults use religion always to like ride it into the wall and just do the most crazy stuff. Because there are loads of people who are very religious religious who are doing the nicest stuff ever, you know, not because they're religious, but they just. They do nice stuff and they're religious. And yeah, it's like, well done guys. You've just completely purposely misinterpreted and ruined something for your own gains. I mean, they all do it. I mean, whether it's, you know, some kind of horrible sex scandal in whichever religion or whatever. It's like there's always someone that is cynically just going, yeah, let's just use this, this what should be a good thing and then just absolutely do evil with it. It's. Yeah, it's very, it's not exactly. There's very few redeeming qualities to come out of this story other than eventually they got caught.

[Brett Weinstein]

Eventually they got caught. Right? And they got caught. I mean, the level of success these people saw. The primary church banking account had over $41 million in it. Right? So like these people are doing really well. And like the, the indictment has reported a bunch of transactions these 2018 and 2025 from Taylor & Brannan that included 125 pounds of super colossal red king crab legs, six seafood shears and 30 crab cutters. $10,353.44. A Mercedes Benz for $63,000, a Bentley Continental, $70,000 down payment, a Crown Line boat, $105,000, two Jet Skis and one Jet Ski trailer. 24 grand, five ATVs, $31,000 Rolls Royce Cullinan, 123 lease signing payment and then at least four bulletproof automobiles or at least bulletproofing on automobiles. It's a little unclear which to me based on how the indictments written. But yeah, do you ever think great stuff?

[Jake Hanrahan]

Like I hear all that and I'm like, wow, like, you know, I'm breaking my ass to do all these projects and you know, be an independent journalist.

[Brett Weinstein]

And just start a cult.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I could just be an evil cult guy and I'll literally be able to.

[Brett Weinstein]

Buy like think It. Every day. Get.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Every day I get, like, bulletproof cars and fucking crabs legs and. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Brett Weinstein]

Shit, that's the grift. Fuck.

[Jake Hanrahan]

That is the grift.

[Brett Weinstein]

What am I doing?

[Jake Hanrahan]

If only we were completely evil, you know, Right?

[Brett Weinstein]

If only I gave up my soul entirely. The amount of money I could be making. Holy shit. Yeah. Well, that's a good retirement plan at least, Jake.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Yeah, thanks for that.

[Brett Weinstein]

Mm. Well, all right. You got any pluggables to plug before we roll out here?

[Jake Hanrahan]

That is part two, honestly, mostly Sad Oligarch two, as I said in the last episode, really, really happy with this.

[Brett Weinstein]

We've.

[Jake Hanrahan]

We've had to really scrape at the research on this. Even people we've reached out to are just like. It's like brick wall, you know, and it's very hard to get information. But we've. We've really made it work in a way that I think is. It's kind of come out even better, the limitations, actually, because you kind of have to go around the houses to get there, and on the way you find a lot of interesting stuff. So, yeah, sad oligarch 2. Definitely check that out. And Popular Front is always booming. But also I've got a new, new documentary series. If we can plug that away Days, that is. It's gonna. It's. We've got. The first episode is out, but it's, you know, it's a very, very big, big project which, you know, we haven't bitten off more than we can chew, but almost. It's like we almost did. But yeah, if people go to, you know, YouTube.com waydaystv obviously it's the video version of a lot of the stuff they would have heard in the docu. In the. In the podcast that we. We did.

[Brett Weinstein]

Excellent. Well, fucking check that out. Sad Oligarch, Away Days and Popular front. All of Jake Hanrahan's vast media empire. And yeah, join his cult when he finally starts one. You know, unless I've started a cult by then, in which case we can just.

[Jake Hanrahan]

We can just collab.

[Brett Weinstein]

Yeah, yeah, There we go. All right, everybody. This has been behind the Bastards. Next week we'll be back with maybe a slightly different cult.

[Jake Hanrahan]

Brilliant.

[Brett Weinstein]

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brett Weinstein]

Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

Subscribe to our channel YouTube.com BehindTheBastards.

[Jake Hanrahan]

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[Brett Weinstein]

Johnny Knoxville here.

[Jake Hanrahan]

I want to tell you about my.

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[Brett Weinstein]

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Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Wait a minute, Sophia, how do you.

[Brett Weinstein]

Know she's a cult leader?

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the okay, Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I tried to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult.

[Brett Weinstein]

Hold up.

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

A real life cult.

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And what is a dirt ritual?

[Podcast Advertiser/Promo Voice]

No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brett Weinstein]

Chicago, A white woman's murder. A black man behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.

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90 years for killing somebody I have never seen.

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[Brett Weinstein]

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[Brett Weinstein]

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