Deborah Green’s Cult: The Raid, Convictions, and Fugitive Status

Deborah Green is the co-founder of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, a paramilitary religious group whose remote New Mexico compound became the site of child rape, forced labor, and the 2014 death of a 12-year-old boy. The Deborah Green cult, known by members as ACMTC and originally as Free Love Ministries, was dismantled after an August 2017 raid, and Green was convicted in 2018 on multiple charges. After a series of legal reversals that briefly freed her, the New Mexico Supreme Court reinstated her child abuse conviction in April 2025. She has not been in custody since January 2022 and is considered a fugitive.

Who Deborah Green Is and How the Group Started

Green was born Lila Carter in California and came out of the late-1960s and 1970s counterculture. Around 1980, she and her husband, James “Jim” Green, told an old acquaintance they had “found God” and returned to California to build what they described as a “spiritual army” against secularism and mainstream Christianity.¹

They called it Free Love Ministries at first.² Operating off X Street in Sacramento, the group grew to about 30 members by the mid-1980s.³ Lila renamed herself Deborah, after the soldier-prophet in the Book of Judges, and took the title “General.” She and Jim structured the group as a military hierarchy with both of them at the top.

An early lawsuit forced them out of California. Maura Schmierer, one of the first members, sued in Sacramento County Superior Court alleging false imprisonment, claiming she had been confined to a shed on the property for three months after being accused of “spiritual adultery.” In March 1989, a judge entered a default judgment of more than $1 million against Free Love Ministries and the Greens. Rather than pay, the group destroyed their Sacramento compound, fled the state, and moved through Oregon and other states using cash and third-party names to buy property.⁴ By 1993 they had settled in New Mexico, eventually establishing the compound near Fence Lake in rural Cibola County.

Inside the Fence Lake Compound

At Fence Lake, Deborah Green held nearly total control over followers, who called her “General,” “Mom,” or the “Oracle of God,” reflecting her claim that she spoke directly for God.⁵ She dictated what members wore, when they prayed, what they ate, and their sexual activity. Members wore military-style uniforms, and the group frequently changed names and locations to avoid law enforcement.⁶

Former members described the compound as something between a prison and a slave-labor camp. Children were beaten with belts and switches and trained not to speak with police. Green held internal “trials” against members who questioned her.⁵ Food was withheld as punishment. Sarah Green, Deborah’s eldest daughter, later described eating out of trash cans as a child.²

Sarah has also described an international trafficking scheme in which babies were obtained from struggling mothers in African countries, including Uganda, and brought into the United States to be raised inside the sect.² Illnesses often went untreated. Children born at the compound had no birth records; authorities later found the births of at least 11 children had never been registered.⁷ The Southern Poverty Law Center classified the ACMTC as a hate group, citing anti-Semitic and anti-gay content on the organization’s website.⁶

The Death of Enoch Miller

In January 2014, a 12-year-old boy named Enoch Miller fell ill with the flu at the compound. Rather than seeking medical treatment, Deborah Green denied him food as punishment for missing meals due to his illness. His condition worsened until he suffered partial paralysis, blindness in one eye, seizures, and lost the ability to speak or swallow. He died and was buried on the compound grounds.⁸ An autopsy later gave the cause of death as a probable infectious disease.⁹

The death went unreported for nearly two years. In January 2016, two members trying to leave the compound told police about it, and authorities later exhumed Enoch’s body.⁹ The discovery helped trigger a broader two-year investigation by the Cibola County Sheriff’s Office.

Enoch’s mother, Stacey Miller, pleaded guilty to abandonment of a child resulting in death and was sentenced to nine years in prison.¹⁰

The 2017 Raid and the Charges

On August 20, 2017, authorities raided the Fence Lake compound. Deborah Green was arrested and charged with failure to report a birth, child abuse, and sexual penetration of a minor, with bond set at $500,000 cash surety. Peter Green, a high-ranking member also known as Mike Brandon, was charged with 100 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a child, with bond set at $5 million.¹¹

Three days later, deputies stopped two vans leaving the compound. Inside were four more members and seven children, along with roughly $1,000 in cash, luggage, and road maps. Sheriff Tony Mace said the group appeared to be fleeing to avoid a court order requiring the children to be presented for interviews with an FBI forensic expert.¹¹ All four adults were charged with felony failure to register the births of 11 children, and the children were placed in state custody.⁷ Nine members were arrested in total.¹²

Convictions, Vacated Sentence, and Reinstatement

In 2018, a jury convicted Deborah Green of three counts of child rape, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of child abuse involving a young woman who had been taken from Uganda as a baby and raised in the compound. The survivor testified she had endured years of physical abuse, including broken bones requiring 11 surgeries, which she described as “torture.” District Court Judge James Sanchez sentenced Green to 72 years in prison. “A weaker person would not have survived,” he told the survivor.¹³

In a separate proceeding tied to Enoch Miller’s death, Green pleaded no contest to one count of reckless child abuse resulting in great bodily harm and two counts of evidence tampering, receiving an additional 18-year sentence.¹⁴¹⁵⁸

The convictions did not hold on the first pass. In November 2020, Deborah Green’s 72-year sentence for kidnapping and sexual abuse was vacated due to a Brady violation, meaning the prosecution had failed to disclose evidence to the defense. The state then dismissed those charges, citing the unavailability of key witnesses.¹⁴

Green next challenged her remaining 18-year sentence for the Enoch Miller case through a habeas corpus petition. In 2022, a district court judge accepted her claim of actual innocence, set aside the plea agreement, and ordered her released.⁹ She walked free in January 2022.²

The state appealed. On April 21, 2025, the New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously reversed and reinstated the child abuse conviction. Writing for the court, Justice C. Shannon Bacon found that the district court’s own factual finding, that Green’s failure to seek medical care caused the child’s condition to worsen, was “incompatible with a finding of actual innocence.” The court also noted that Green had presented no new evidence of innocence and had relied on a “misguided legal argument” that a later court decision had changed the legal standard for medical neglect.⁹ The case was remanded to the 13th Judicial District Court, where prosecutors have said they will pursue reinstatement of the original 18-year sentence.⁸

Where Deborah Green Is Now

As of early 2026, the child abuse conviction stands and prosecutors intend to reimpose the 18-year sentence, but Deborah Green is not in custody. She was released in January 2022 and has not been located since the New Mexico Supreme Court’s April 2025 ruling. Sarah Green, her eldest daughter, testified against her in 2018 and has expressed frustration that authorities have allowed a nearly 80-year-old fugitive to disappear.² Lauren Rodriguez of the New Mexico Department of Justice called Enoch Miller’s death “preventable and tragic” and said the ruling “affirms that those who endanger children through neglect will be held accountable.”⁸

1
VPM/NPR. What Draws People Into Cults? A New Book Tracks the Journeys of Two Followers
2
The Guardian. Daughter Interview: Deborah Green and Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps
3
KCRA. Life Inside Military Religious Group: Former Sacramento Member Speaks Out
4
FindLaw. Schmierer v. Tribal Trust, No. A-1-CA-35285
5
CBS News. Paramilitary Sect Leader Deborah Green Sentenced
6
CBS News. Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps
7
CBS News. Paramilitary Sect Members Indicted in Child Abuse Case
8
Santa Fe New Mexican. Child Abuse Conviction for Co-Leader of Cibola County Paramilitary Christian Sect Reinstated
9
FindLaw. State v. Green, No. S-1-SC-39283
10
KRQE. Mother in New Mexico Christian Sect Sentenced in Son’s Death
11
KCRA. 4 More Religious Sect Members Arrested in New Mexico
12
Cibola Citizen. Supreme Court Restores Child Abuse Conviction of Fence Lake Cult Leader
13
People. Army of God Cult Leader Sentenced for Sex Crimes Against Children
14
New Mexico Courts. Supreme Court Reinstates Child Abuse Conviction of Religious Group’s Co-Leader
15
KRQE. Aggressive Christianity Cult Leader Pleads No Contest to Child Abuse Charges