10 Religious Leaders Who Committed Secret Crimes

10 Religious Leaders Who Committed Secret Crimes

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at 10 spiritual heads who reportedly hid behind their leadership to commit crimes.

John-Paul Miller

This charismatic former South Carolina pastor carefully cultivated a public persona rooted in faith, spiritual leadership, and deep community devotion. Yet, behind this righteous facade lay a dark, hidden life. While leading his congregation each Sunday, Miller allegedly waged a secret, highly calculated campaign of harassment and technological control against his estranged wife, Mica. This calculated betrayal– and the national controversy surrounding it– is the focus of the three-part Netflix documentary series “Death of the Pastor's Wife.” Federal investigators eventually unmasked his actions, indicting the prominent spiritual leader for cyberstalking and making false statements. The shocking case deeply fractured his community's trust, proving that the most deceptive dangers can hide right behind the pulpit.

Jimmy Swaggart

By the 1980s, Jimmy Swaggart had become one of the most-watched televangelists in America. He ran a ministry that reached an estimated 510 million people across multiple countries and pulled in roughly $150 million a year. The unraveling began when Swaggart had publicly accused fellow televangelist Marvin Gorman of adultery. Gorman retaliated by hiring a photographer who caught Swaggart with a sex worker. The resulting 1988 confession became one of television’s most replayed moments, though Swaggart never faced any criminal charges. Defrocked by the Assemblies of God, he rebuilt independently. A second scandal surfaced in 1991 when California police stopped his car and found him with another sex worker. What made the scandal more striking was how central moral authority had been to his ministry.

Luc Jouret

While Luc Jouret was the public face of the Order of the Solar Temple, he wasn’t its true leader. A homeopathic doctor turned spiritual leader, he lectured across France, Switzerland, and Canada. But internally, Jouret answered to founder Joseph Di Mambro, who ran the group’s finances and theology from behind the scenes. Together, they built a transit doctrine promising followers rebirth on a star near Sirius. The group peaked at 442 members in January 1989 before unraveling under financial scandal and internal dissent. In October 1994, fires, reportedly self-induced, consumed Solar Temple properties in Switzerland and Canada, claiming over 50 lives, including both Jouret and Di Mambro. Two further "transit" incidents followed in France in 1995 and 1997, bringing the order’s total death toll to over 70.

David Berg

Founded in California in 1968 by David Berg, the Children of God movement grew into tens of thousands of members across dozens of countries within two decades. Berg used a recruitment technique called “flirty fishing,” in which female members were encouraged to use sex to attract new converts. Former members and later investigations described patterns of sexual abuse of minors and exploitation within the group’s inner structure. The organization disputed the allegations, and Berg himself withdrew into total seclusion in his later years, issuing handwritten and recorded directives to followers. He died in Portugal in 1994 without ever facing criminal charges. The group rebranded multiple times, eventually as the Family International, but the unresolved allegations against its founder remain its defining shadow.

Henry Lyons

As the president of the National Baptist Convention USA from 1994, Henry Lyons was a powerful Black religious leader in America. In July 1997, he became the focus of a scandal. His wife, Deborah Lyons, discovered he co-owned a waterfront Florida home with Bernice Edwards, the convention’s public relations director. In a jealous rage, Deborah set it on fire, and later pleaded guilty to first-degree arson. The fire led investigators straight to the real story. Lyons and Edwards had secretly swindled more than $4 million from companies seeking access to the convention’s membership. After being indicted by Federal prosecutors, he ultimately pleaded guilty to racketeering and grand theft, serving five and a half years before his 2003 release. Lyons died in October 2025.

Jim Bakker

Combining preaching with a sprawling religious entertainment empire, Jim Bakker’s PTL ministry reached new heights in the 1980s. Behind the influence, he was leading a double life. Everything unraveled under two instances of misconduct. His ministry was rocked first in 1987 by revelations that he had paid hush money to church secretary Jessica Hahn following a 1980 sexual encounter. That scandal cost him his pulpit and his denomination’s ordination. A second and deeper investigation followed separately. It uncovered that PTL had covertly oversold lifetime partnerships, promising donors annual lodging at Bakker’s Heritage USA resort. In 1989, a jury convicted Bakker on 24 counts of mail and wire fraud and conspiracy. He was sentenced to 45 years, serving nearly five before release in 1994.

Warren Jeffs

Leadership of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints passed to Warren Jeffs in 2002. He succeeded his father as prophet and took control of marriages, property, and daily life across isolated FLDS communities across the country. He personally arranged marriages between adult men and minors, framing the unions as a religious sacrament. Placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, Jeffs was arrested in 2006 during a routine traffic stop near Las Vegas. A 2011 Texas trial convicted him on two felony counts of sexual assault of minors, tied to victims whom he had taken as spiritual wives. Jeffs was sentenced to life plus 20 years. He continues to lead the FLDS by phone and written word from inside a Texas prison.

Shoko Asahara

Aum Shinrikyo was founded in 1984 by Shoko Asahara, a half-blind former acupuncturist who attracted thousands of followers. Even graduates of Japan’s top universities were drawn to his promises of supernatural powers. Behind the public teaching, Asahara secretly directed the group toward chemical and biological weapons production, stockpiling sarin precursors. On March 20, 1995, Aum operatives released sarin gas across five Tokyo subway cars during rush hour, killing 14 people and injuring more than 6,000. The attack was later confirmed to have been timed deliberately to disrupt an imminent police raid. Asahara was arrested weeks later, hiding within an Aum compound. Convicted on 13 counts, including murder and attempted murder, he was executed by hanging in July 2018, alongside several other members.

Sun Myung Moon

The Korean-born founder of the Unification Church, Sun Myung Moon, built a global movement known for mass weddings. He famously organized a single 1982 Madison Square Garden ceremony joining 2,075 couples, many of whom had only just met. That same year, a New York jury convicted Moon of filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy. It was tied to roughly $150,000 in unreported interest income and church funds held personally in his name. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence at a federal prison, an experience Moon later described as religious persecution rather than justice. Supporters, including numerous conservative American politicians, framed the case as selective targeting of a controversial foreign religious figure.

Tony Alamo

The Alamo Christian Foundation was transformed into a highly visible evangelical organization by Tony Alamo in the United States. Following the 1982 death of his wife and co-founder, Susan, Alamo declared he could resurrect her and kept her embalmed body on display for months. This became an early sign of the absolute authority he held over followers. Federal investigators eventually built a case around evidence that Alamo had taken multiple minors as brides in religious ceremonies he performed himself. He reportedly secretly assaulted the minors across state lines. A 2009 federal jury convicted him on ten counts, and testimony described coerced unions and a system where dissent was treated as spiritual failure. Sentenced to 175 years, Alamo died in federal prison in 2017 without remorse.

Which religious leader committed the most horrific crime? Let us know in the comments.