ORLANDO, Fla. — UPDATE:
A federal judge granted Michelle Brannon’s request for bond Wednesday.
Brannon’s $10,000 bond comes with numerous conditions, including living at a specific Michigan address, agreeing to GPS monitoring and not contacting any church members except for one man.
ORIGINAL STORY:
One of the two accused ringleaders arrested last month for a church-turned-forced-labor operation is running into heavy opposition as she prepares to ask for her freedom Wednesday.
Michelle Brannon is scheduled to appear in a Michigan federal courtroom for a bail hearing, weeks after FBI agents surrounded the Kingdom of God Global Church’s properties in Ocala, Tampa, and other states after they received complaints of unpaid workers being deprived of sleep and food.
Brannon was the right-hand assistant to David Taylor, the church’s so-called “apostle.” Prosecutors said Taylor and Brannon instructed their call center workers to solicit donations from congregants who believed the money would be used for charitable work and gave the workers unrealistic fundraising targets. The workers would be punished when they failed to meet their goals.
In their filings, Brannon’s attorneys said she had strong connections to her Tampa and North Carolina properties and could live there while waiting for her trial, under conditions that included no contact with other church members.
Prosecutors filed their own documents revealing more about the church’s inner workings in response, including claims children would be abused inside the call center properties and kept separated from their parents.
“Thirteen people were sleeping in the living quarters above the garage, sharing a single bathroom,” agents said of the Tampa property. “Brannon, by contrast, enjoyed her own lavishly furnished multi-room bedroom suite… included two showers and four vanities.”
Agents also listed their other findings inside the Tampa house and the other properties as a result of their raids:
- $500,000 in gold bars in a bedroom closet
- $60,000 in cash from the closet
- Silver coins from three homes
- Jewelry from a locked safe
- Designer clothing and purses
- Foreign currency
- Several life-sized stone statues and decorative pillars
- Eight Mercedes Benz sedans
- Two Bentley sedans
- One Rolls Royce
- One Lincoln Navigator
- $4.1 million in bank accounts
- Thousands of sexually explicit photos and videos from female church workers
- Notebooks detailing workers’ schedules, monetary quotas, and punishments for not meeting the quotas like picking up trash for 24 straight hours
The Ocala location was not specifically mentioned.
“Given Brannon’s own reign of terror over her victims, her leadership role in the forced labor and money laundering conspiracies… she is a danger to the community if released,” prosecutors said.
The bail hearing is scheduled to begin in Detroit at 1 p.m. local time.
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