Six members of a Kansas-based cult have been convicted over a conspiracy in which they forced children as young as eight to work 16-hour days under the threat of “eternal hellfire.”
The former members of the United Nation of Islam kept dozens of victims in “deplorable conditions ” in overcrowded facilities that were often overrun with mold and rats, according to the Department of Justice .
Victims’ food and water intake was so heavily policed that a girl drank water from a toilet because she was so thirsty, the department said.
Kaaba Majeed, 50, Yunus Rassoul, 39, James Staton, 62, Randolph Rodney Hadley, 49, Daniel Aubrey Jenkins, 43, and Dana Peach, 60, were convicted of conspiracy to commit forced labor following a 26-day trial.
The six defendants were all former high-ranking members of the cult, or were wives to the organization’s founder, Royall Jenkins.
According to the federal prosecutors, the Nation and its members had promoted themselves as a “beacon of hope for the community” but had committed “heinous atrocities” against vulnerable youngsters.