{"id":402289,"date":"2026-08-10T04:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T04:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/402289\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T04:10:10","slug":"indicted-houston-church-leader-demanded-workers-sext-him-feds-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/402289\/","title":{"rendered":"Indicted Houston church leader ‘demanded’ workers sext him, feds say"},"content":{"rendered":"

A religious leader who\u00a0ran a Houston call center<\/a> used threats of God\u2019s punishment to induce young female workers to send him sexually explicit photos, according to text messages released in new court filings.<\/p>\n

Last August, the FBI raided a Kingdom of God Global Church<\/a> call center in Houston and accused leader David E. Taylor<\/a> of forcing people to work there without pay. Nearly a year later, federal prosecutors have released new text messages in an updated indictment that alleges Taylor used sexual images from workers to \u201ccontrol and exploit\u201d them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE: New details emerge after Houston church leader arrested in forced labor scheme<\/a><\/p>\n

Taylor wrote to female workers that \u201cyour body belongs to me\u201d and said Satan would \u201cdestroy you if you don\u2019t surrender,\u201d according to the messages. He also shared explicit images of workers online to punish them for criticizing him publicly, the indictment alleged.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Attorneys for Taylor, 54, have vehemently denied that he broke the law. They said the people who worked at his call centers were free to leave and were not being physically harmed or restrained. Defense lawyers accused prosecutors of trying to discredit Taylor\u2019s sincere religious belief \u2014 that those who disobeyed him would be punished by God.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government may not treat a pastor\u2019s sincere religious teaching about spiritual consequences as the mechanism of criminal coercion,\u201d a court filing from defense lawyers stated. They argued the government couldn\u2019t say those \u201cspiritual consequences\u201d weren\u2019t real.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taylor was arrested last August and remains in custody. His ministry operated call centers in states including Michigan, Florida, and Missouri, where workers aimed to solicit monetary donations. The Houston facility on the 14300 block of North Freeway was formerly a hotel.<\/p>\n

MORE ON THIS CASE: FBI Houston operation targets religious leaders accused of money laundering, forced labor,\u00a0DOJ reports<\/a><\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s ministry has received about $50 million in donations since 2014, according to court filings. Prosecutors said Taylor and a co-defendant, Michelle Brannon, spent donations on luxury properties, cars, and jet skis. He and Brannon have also been charged with conspiring to launder money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kathleen Klein, a third Kingdom of God Global Church leader known as \u201cProphetess,\u201d was indicted in February and accused of conspiring to force people to work at the call centers.<\/p>\n

The new indictment included messages from Taylor to young call center workers who were 18 and 19 at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mugshot<\/p>\n

Mugshot of Kingdom of God Global Church leader David\u00a0E. Taylor after his arrest on federal charges in August 2025.<\/p>\n

Durham County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

In 2022, Taylor sent text messages to an 18-year-old church member demanding sexually explicit photos of herself, according to the new federal indictment. The woman told him she was \u201cnot attracted or in love,\u201d and \u201cit is taking me long to see you as my husband.\u201d In another 2022 message, she asked him if she would \u201cgo to hell if I didn\u2019t want you.\u201d He responded that she would.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

That November, Taylor warned her that lying to him \u201ccan cost you your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has already been 5 people who has actually died from lying to me and it was instant on the spot !!\u201d he wrote. That December, he told her a private part of her body \u201cbelongs to me and you should want to surrender that on your own at anytime frequently without me asking.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: What to know about Joshua Media Ministries, David Taylor after FBI raid at Houston church<\/a>`<\/p>\n

In other messages to a 19-year-old woman in 2020, Taylor instructed her to send him naked pictures, which she eventually did, according to the indictment. In one text, he said God would bring “sickness and death” upon her because she refused to be happy with him.<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s legal team has not yet responded to the most recent string of text messages the government released last week. However, his lawyers did respond to the allegation, in a February indictment, that he frequently solicited sexual photos and videos from female members of his organization.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\u201cThose allegations are not charged as a separate sexual offense, are not tied to any specific\u00a0forced-labor count, and do not explain how any labor or services were allegedly obtained,\u201d his lawyers wrote in a June filing. \u201cThey function primarily as inflammatory background.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor and Brannon were accused last year of controlling \u201cpractically every aspect\u201d of the lives of unpaid call center workers, who lived at the centers or on ministry property. Prosecutors said that Taylor and Brannon used physical punishments, like throwing water on workers\u2019 faces, denying them food, or allowing them to eat only peanut butter and jelly, to \u201cforce\u201d them to work there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For their part, Taylor\u2019s attorneys argued that was far below the legal threshold for criminal coercion. They said prosecutors had unlawfully stopped Taylor from practicing the church discipline he believed necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a genuine believer in that tradition, the teaching that God disciplines the disobedient and rewards the faithful is not a threatening harm to be avoided,\u201d one filing said. \u201cIt is religious truth that motivates service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A religious leader who\u00a0ran a Houston call center used threats of God\u2019s punishment to induce young female workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-402289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}