Wisconsin鈥檚 Institute of Science and Technology Fears Vatican Conspiracy
Just outside the city limits here lies the Midwest Amusement Park and USA International Raceway, its vacant grounds and winter-worn buildings evoking the same kind of eerie feeling that makes off-season attractions such good settings for horror films.
Just outside the city limits here lies the Midwest Amusement Park and USA International Raceway, its vacant grounds and winter-worn buildings evoking the same kind of eerie feeling that makes off-season attractions such good settings for horror films.
In receivership since 2010, the amusement park is at the center of a long-running, angry dispute between the town and members of a mysterious, Catholic-bashing group that intended to use profits from the attraction and other local businesses to build a school here and fund another in India.
Now, the group鈥檚 CEO is on the run after failing to show up in court last December to explain why she filed court papers denouncing a bankruptcy judge as a 鈥淐atholic Knight Witch Hunter鈥 and 鈥減opess鈥 鈥 and why she called U.S. bankruptcy courts a cabal of 鈥渨hite Supremacist鈥 鈥淐atholic beasts.鈥
The imbroglio is just the latest chapter in the strange history of the Dr. R.C. Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology (SIST), a nonprofit organization with extensive property holdings in the area that once included the Midwest Amusement Park.
SIST was formerly known as The Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ 鈥 or 鈥淏rethren,鈥 as they called themselves internally. City officials call the quirky, standoffish group a cult. It was founded in the 1970s by Rama Chandra Behera, a charismatic Indian convert to Christianity whose iron-fisted micromanagement of his followers鈥 lives led to repeated kidnappings by 鈥渄eprogrammers鈥 in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the last decade, the Brethren have again drawn unwanted attention, as young adults who were raised among them claimed to have suffered abuse at the hands of the leader their parents so admired. Some former members, including one who spoke to the Intelligence Report, have alleged that Behera punished them for perceived infractions by applying an electric cattle prod to sensitive parts of their bodies.
Board members and employees of SIST 鈥 which claims more than $6 million in net assets and whose unpaid president is Cohen 鈥 are worried about what might happen to Isaacson and enraged over alleged attacks on their group.
SIST declined to provide an official spokesperson to discuss its claims and the allegations against it. However, a group of six people that included three SIST board members, one of whom has acted as an attorney for SIST, met with a writer for the Intelligence Report. Miriam Sindt, a paralegal whose father joined the group in the 1970s and today sits on SIST鈥檚 board of directors, said she fears the worst. 鈥淓ither she鈥檒l get locked up and we鈥檒l never see her again,鈥 she said of Isaacson, 鈥渙r she鈥檒l come out on a stretcher,鈥 the victim of a Catholic conspiracy to silence her forever.
A Hindu is 鈥楤orn Again鈥
Situated about 35 miles northwest of Green Bay, the town of Shawano (pop. 9,305) appears stereotypically Midwestern. Children sled on snowy hills in the winter, and mud-spattered pickups speed down arrow-straight roads when it鈥檚 warmer. At the Farm Inn on Main Street, you can get more kinds of pie than there are days in the week.
Just outside of town sits a ranch-style house, its windows covered with tarps. Parked at the end of the driveway is a sedan whose grim-faced occupant waits to photograph any interlopers.
These days, SIST partisans refer to the building as 鈥渉eadquarters.鈥 But once upon a time, it was just 鈥淩ama鈥檚 house,鈥 where on weekends The Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ gathered to pray, work and engage in Christian fellowship. Behera, a Hindu-born Indian evangelist who claimed to have been born again into Christianity after Jesus visited him in 1966, preached a fundamentalist and anti-modern message that had a certain appeal among those who were unsettled by changing values in America.
Most of the Brethren worked regular jobs. On weekends, they listened to marathon sermons and toiled at menial labor on Behera鈥檚 property. Long-skirted women and plainly dressed men fixed up the house or worked the land while their children cut grass 鈥 with scissors, according to one woman who was raised in the group 鈥 or hauled water to distant plants. For the most part, the 鈥淩amas,鈥 as locals called them, kept to themselves, though there were occasionally run-ins over taxes and construction permits. Local teens made 鈥淩ama-runs,鈥 speeding by the house and throwing things out of car windows.
In 1978, shots were fired into Behera鈥檚 house. Years later, a homemade bomb sailed into an empty field near the house, terrifying its occupants.
No one was ever arrested for the shooting or the bomb 鈥 a fact that Behera鈥檚 followers see as further evidence of a massive conspiracy directed by the Shawano-based agents of the Vatican, who are 鈥渨hite supremacists鈥 and 鈥渘eo-Nazis鈥 who cannot bear to see 鈥渁 businessman from India,鈥 as Behera鈥檚 followers usually refer to him, succeed.
In 1990, Behera changed his name to Samanta Roy. Around the same time, he declared his intention to build the Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology, or SIST, which was to have campuses in both India and Wisconsin. SIST was incorporated as a nonprofit in 1996, with the stated purpose, according to more recent tax documents, of 鈥減rovid[ing] the American system of education to India, a land that has been dominated by the British-Indian method for centuries.鈥 Eleven years later, having drifted theologically toward Judaism, Behera/Roy changed his name again, this time to Avraham Cohen. At 72, he reportedly now lives under that name in Pikesville, Md., and apparently has not spoken to the media since 1982.
Christianity as 鈥楧eath Cult鈥
As Cohen鈥檚 followers see it, the Catholic Church has been responsible for practically every major war and atrocity in human history: the French Revolution; the Holocaust; the Rwandan genocide; the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy; and a dizzying array of others. Hitler and Himmler were Jesuit agents, as are Shawano Mayor Lorna Marquardt, Shawano Police Chief Ed Whealon, federal bankruptcy judge Nancy Dreher and myriad alleged co-conspirators. Catholics are said to control the banks, the government and the media. These beliefs are, for the most part, drawn from anti-Catholic conspiracy theories that have been accumulating at least since the Protestant Reformation and that have, like their anti-Semitic and antigovernment cousins, proliferated since the advent of the Internet. 鈥淲hen you ask how do we have solid proof, it鈥檚 a whole compilation of things they鈥檝e done over the years,鈥 said Miriam Sindt, one of the group that met with the Report. 鈥淲hen we say 鈥榯hey,鈥 we don鈥檛 know entirely who is 鈥榯hey.鈥欌
What Sindt says she does know is that 鈥淐hristianity is a false, evil religion that was fabricated.鈥 She and other SIST partisans go on to argue, repeatedly, that 鈥渉istorians鈥 have identified the faith as 鈥溾榙irty, filthy, and the most dangerous death cult in human history.鈥欌
Though Cohen reportedly preached against the practices of mainstream Christian denominations from the beginning, his followers did not always harbor such poisonous hatred for Catholics in particular. According to a 35-year-old woman who was raised among the Brethren and spoke to the Report on condition of anonymity, it wasn鈥檛 until the 1980s that Cohen told his followers to begin 鈥渞esearching鈥 the Catholic Church.
It was around this time that the group had its worst run-in with 鈥渄eprogrammers,鈥 who tried to free some of Cohen鈥檚 followers from what they saw as his unnatural hold on them.
In 1982, the families of 24-year-old William Eilers and his pregnant wife, Sandy, hired deprogrammers to 鈥渞escue鈥 their children from Cohen鈥檚 group, believing they had been brainwashed. The families were Catholic and Lutheran, and the deprogrammers took the abducted couple to a Franciscan (Catholic) retreat in Winona, Minn., and held them until they renounced Cohen鈥檚 group. Sandy Eilers was apparently sincere, but William Eilers returned to the Brethren. He later sued the deprogrammers, and a federal court ruling in his favor proved pivotal in a series of legal precedents making clear that the abduction of adult children from the clutches of perceived cults is not legal.
鈥淭here is ample evidence that this group is an authoritarian religious fellowship directed with an iron hand by Brother Rama Behera. 鈥 [But] the beliefs and practices of the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ should not be, and are not, on trial,鈥 wrote the judge in the case. Expressing 鈥渟ubstantial sympathy鈥 for the Eilers鈥 parents, the judge nevertheless ruled that the deprogrammers鈥 actions, no matter how well intentioned, amounted to illegal false imprisonment.
In the late 1980s, Cohen began to take up Old Testament ideas, telling his flock to celebrate the Jewish holidays of Passover and Rosh Hashanah, and ultimately renouncing Christianity altogether.
Cohen was known as a harsh disciplinarian. Speaking with the Report, the woman raised among the Brethren recalled in vivid detail a time when, she said, Cohen punished her for crying at age 3 or 4 by picking her up by the ankle and carrying her into a back room, where he sat on her and 鈥渮apped鈥 her with a cattle prod. Teenage girls who displeased Cohen, she added, had their heads shaved.
Cohen also allegedly arranged his followers鈥 marriages and named their babies. He told them what professions to pursue. He forbade peanut butter and Italian food 鈥 鈥淧ope food,鈥 he called it 鈥 and would not allow birthday or Christmas celebrations. Only holidays that would 鈥渕ake us meditate and feel bad about our sins鈥 were celebrated, the woman recalled. 鈥淚t got stricter and stricter and stricter.鈥
One young man left the group and became Amish, the woman said. 鈥淚 think he was attracted to it because it was a similar life to what was had, but there was more freedom.鈥
Sometime after finishing college, she also left 鈥 like many of the other children born in the group in the 1970s and 1980s.
Today, the SIST representatives who met with the Report deny that their organization has anything to do with religion. Pressed, they acknowledge that 鈥渢he businessman from India,鈥 who is still listed as SIST鈥檚 president on 2010 tax documents, is an important figure in their lives but insist that that鈥檚 only because of his wisdom and concern for their wellbeing.
A 鈥楬it List鈥 Emerges
For years after the deprogramming scandals died down, the Brethren lived a reclusive existence, interacting with local government as little as possible. The peace ended in the late 1990s when Shawano County announced that a bypass intended to ease traffic to a nearby Indian casino would run directly across Cohen鈥檚 land. His followers protested furiously, claiming they wanted to build their school on that exact spot. But the county, using its powers of eminent domain, negotiated a purchase instead.
In retaliation, the Brethren handed out swastika-festooned flyers comparing the zoning committee to Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler and suggesting that its chairman was an escaped Nazi who had survived by eating bugs.
Tensions grew even more strained in the early 2000s, when SIST started buying commercial properties. When some buildings remained empty and were boarded up, SIST claimed that 鈥淐atholic鈥 and 鈥渘eo-Nazi鈥 city officials were warning potential tenants away because of a racist vendetta against 鈥渢he businessman from India.鈥
The disputes accumulated, many over unpaid taxes and other bills. Meanwhile, in 2002, a former follower of Cohen鈥檚 was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually assaulting his teenage daughter. Other former followers wrote the court to claim that the man would never have committed the crime had he not been 鈥渂rainwashed鈥 and emotionally abused by Cohen 鈥 a defense that failed in court but set local tongues wagging. Many other former Brethren have since emerged to make allegations of appalling abuse and manipulation.
The group鈥檚 financial troubles continued after it bought Midwest Amusement Park in 2003. It wasn鈥檛 long before flyers 鈥 and even a series of YouTube videos 鈥 began to appear accusing Mayor Marquardt of being a neo-Nazi who was waging a systematic campaign to destroy SIST.
In November 2008, the FBI informed 60 city and county officials, media representatives, and other prominent locals that their names had appeared on a 鈥渉it list鈥 believed to be connected to SIST. A man who had done business with the SIST subsidiary that ran the amusement park claimed he had accepted the list, along with a $175,000 payment, because he could think of no other way to recover the money SIST owed him, and that he never had any intention of killing anyone. Isaacson, the SIST CEO, retorted that the list was a 鈥渄eadly swindle鈥 devised by city officials to cover up their 鈥渋llegal interference with SIST鈥檚 financial and business plans.鈥
The investigation is technically still open. But according to the FBI, there have been no breaks for years. In the meantime, relations between SIST and local officials have never been worse.
Cohen鈥檚 supporters continue to crank out screeds accusing Marquardt of being at the center of a conspiracy to destroy them. In one YouTube video posted by the group, a Cohen partisan describes the mayor鈥檚 Lutheran faith as a 鈥渂estial belief system鈥 and a 鈥渢umor.鈥 At People鈥檚 Express, a SIST-owned gas station in Shawano, the marquee accuses Marquardt and Whealon, the police chief, of sending 鈥渆missaries鈥 to steal gas and the local 鈥淣eo-Nazi Newspaper鈥 of covering it up.
Asked to describe the group, the first word Whealon uses is 鈥渇rustrating.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 a group of people who have never taken responsibility for what they鈥檝e done,鈥 Whealon said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 always someone else who鈥檚 done it to them.鈥
Is SIST dangerous?
鈥淭here are members of this group that are more than capable of inflicting harm,鈥 the chief said.
The mayor is upset at the damage Cohen鈥檚 followers have done to Shawano鈥檚 reputation and feels intimidated by them. She says they鈥檝e followed her home and put video of her house online, and that she once received an unsigned threat in her mailbox. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a nightmare,鈥 she said.
Now, many of SIST鈥檚 assets have already been liquidated by the bankruptcy court, and Isaacson is on the lam.
In a Jan. 2 open letter to 鈥淐hurches and Ministers of the United States of America,鈥 Isaacson claimed there was a Christian-orchestrated plot to poison her. She threatened to go to India and organize a revolt against 鈥渇oreign Christian missionaries鈥 unless the alleged persecution of SIST is called off. 鈥淎s a White American, I cannot tolerate injustice any longer,鈥 Isaacson wrote to the ministers. 鈥淟et鈥檚 solve the problem peacefully before your mission faces a big warfront in India.鈥
鈥淚 will fight until I die,鈥 she wrote. 鈥淭he choice is yours.鈥
