The three men who own the former American Legion Hall destroyed by fire Thursday are members of a controversial religious group that has been called a cult and accused of child abuse and other offenses.
Besides attracting the attention of authorities, the group also has been accused of racism, homophobia and being anti-semitic.
The group is called Twelve Tribes and reportedly has about 3,000 members in communities in the United States, Canada, South America, Europe and Australia. It started in 1976 in Tennessee.
Members practice a communal lifestyle, sharing living space, income and assets as well as meals and other daily living activities. Children are taught at home and some communities have 100 people in them.
Owner Bruce Carver said he and his partners had not decided whether to establish a Twelve Tribes community in Fort Myers. Those plans will be re-evaluated now that the building has burned, he said.
The purchase was an investment. The three planned to restore it and use it as a residence, he said. Carver, the owner of a tree service, also has a home in Plymouth, Mass.
“We bought the building as individuals. The Twelve Tribes did not buy the building; we pay taxes on the building,” Carver said.
While he is an owner, he said he doesn’t think of the building as his property but as an asset of all in the Twelve Tribes group.
Accusations against the Twelve Tribes are exaggerations, said Carver, 47, a member of the Twelve Tribes community in West Palm Beach.
“We are not anti-Jewish. That information is very warped,” he said.
Neither Annette Goodman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Lee County, nor Rabbi Bruce Diamond of Temple Beth-El knew about the Twelve Tribes.
“I get a lot of information and I’ve never heard of them,” Goodman said. “I’m sorry they lost their property.”
“There are so many of these sects. This is a free country and people get together and do these things,” Diamond said.
The Boston Herald ran stories about the Twelve Tribes last year based on interviews with former members and Bob Pardon, executive director of the New England Institute of Religious Research in Massachusetts.
The Herald said ex-members talked about children being beaten with thin wooden rods and suppressing individuality. The stories also reported that the group has earned income by selling soaps, furniture, health food and other products. There also were reports that the group helped conceal children when one parent wanted to leave with the children and the other parent wanted to stay.
Pardon was quoted as saying there was a deadly combination at work in the Twelve Tribes group founder, Elbert Eugene Spriggs. Pardon said Spriggs claims a direct line to God but is not held accountable for his leadership.
“He’s instigated a lot of the things against us,” said Carver of Pardon. Carver volunteered that Pardon once lodged a child abuse complaint against him.
Pardon could not be reached for comment.
The discipline criticism is blown out of proportion, said Carver, who added that he would use a thin wooden stick like a balloon stick to spank his toddler if necessary. “I was raised that way and I’m not emotionally damaged,” he said.
The Herald stories mentioned several abuse cases where accusations were made but charges were later dropped.
The Herald did report one New York case in which the state fined Twelve Tribes businesses $2,000 for violating child labor law.
“Our children are not on the streets doing drugs, getting pregnant because their parents are interested,” Carver said.
The Twelve Tribes, in an unsigned pamphlet titled “Under Attack,” said the Herald stories were filled with “inflammatory language, half-truths, distortions, and outright lies, painting a horrific picture of cruelty and abuse inside our many ‘compounds’... .”