Judge Orders Sale of Property Purchased by Sect's Leaders

A judge has ordered that a 7,680-acre (3,108-hectare) northwestern New Mexico property purchased by leaders of a paramilitary religious sect be sold to satisfy a $2.9 million judgment won by a former member of the sect.

Associated Press/February 1, 2019

Grants, New Mexico — A judge has ordered that a 7,680-acre (3,108-hectare) northwestern New Mexico property purchased by leaders of a paramilitary religious sect be sold to satisfy a $2.9 million judgment won by a former member of the sect.

The Gallup Independent reports that state District Judge Pedro Rael ordered the sale in a ruling Tuesday to satisfy a lawsuit filed by Maura Schmierer in New Mexico in 2004.

Schmierer joined Free Love Ministries, as the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps sect was then called, in the 1980s in California and later fell out of favor with the Greens.

Schmierer later won a $1.02 million judgment, and attorneys calculate that with interest the judgment amount has risen to $2,913,304.