At first glance, the Christian Church of the End Times seems like any of a number of small, evangelical churches preparing for the Millennium, the biblically prophesied second coming of Christ. Legally it operates like any other church too; it doesn't pay taxes or have to report financial information that other nonprofits do.
But some family members and people formerly associated with the nondenominational church and its leaders, brothers David H. Stanley and Dennis H. Stanley, say it's a cult fueled by sex, lies and lavish lifestyles.
“They want to have a harem of women. They want to have all the sex they can and do it in God's name,” said Stephanie Stanley of Worcester, a former church member whose husband is a cousin of David and Dennis.
The Stanleys' mother, Andrea Gault, says her sons began acting hostile toward her and essentially excommunicated her two years ago when she said she criticized their increasingly abusive behavior toward girls and women in their church.
“They look for the people they can control. They prey on them,” Mrs. Gault said in an interview at her home in Rutland. “It's like they really are possessed.”
The Stanley brothers — a thickly muscled duo who favor tight, embroidered shirts unbuttoned to the sternum, engraved silver belt buckles, reptile skin Western boots and long hair in '80s rock star style — reject such characterizations.
David Stanley, 40, tells followers he is an anointed prophet and an archangel and that his brother, 36, is a “half-breed” angel, according to Dennis' wife, Beth.
David, who has no formal theological training, like many evangelicals, is the pastor; Dennis is the DJ.
When police arrested the brothers two weeks ago at Dennis' $500,000 house on charges stemming from violation of a restraining order taken out by Beth Stanley, David bellowed to police about not bowing to men, banishing the demon and that he did not recognize the police's authority.
“It's all coming from my ex-wife,” Dennis said. “She's trying to make me look like a moron. If she can't have me, she's trying to destroy me. It's kind of crazy.”
For his part, David Stanley said it is his mother and brother's wife, rather than he and his brother, who are controlling. And he dismissed the dozens of times police officers have been called to the brothers' houses on Murphy's Way over the past year as minor incidents relating to dirt bike riding or stray fireworks, none of them resulting in arrest.
David depicted his sister-in-law as a psychologically unstable “gold-digger” who has fed false information to his mother, Mrs. Gault, and who has filed false charges.
“She's very money hungry. Everything's false,” Mr. Stanley said. “It's just a big ploy to get everything. She's the abusive one.”
On Oct. 1 Beth Ellen Stanley filed for divorce from Dennis after 10 years of marriage and 22 years as a couple. They have three children, ages 7, 10 and 13.
The church was incorporated in 2005 at the same address, 19 Industrial Drive, as the Driveways Corp. paving company owned by the brothers. The church shares a metal-walled warehouse with the company and holds what neighbors describe as raucous weeknights and weekend services.
A Blackstone Valley real estate agent who showed the brothers an old American Legion hall in Millville when they were first looking for a church building said David Stanley told him it was too small — their dream was to build a 60,000-seat mega church nearly the size of Gillette Stadium.
The only problem is that much of the 41 acres next to Route 146 they bought for the mega church for $677,500 (and is now worth about half that) is undevelopable because it is filled with wetlands.
“He told me they found the Lord by watching (television evangelist) Pat Robertson on TV at midnight,” said the real estate agent, Martin Green of Northbridge.
While the brothers have espoused the glories of following God's laws, they haven't been so observant of man's rules and regulations for paving driveways, records show.
In Marlboro, for example, code enforcement officers hit Driveways Corp. with a flurry of $200 tickets in 2009 for going door to door and paving driveways without the necessary permits, engineering plans and insurance bonding to protect the city in the event of damage to sidewalks or the roadway.
“I was issuing tickets left and right,” said Code Enforcement Officer Pamela A. Wilderman. “At one point, one of the guys from the DPW went out to tell them to stop, and the guy driving the asphalt truck tried to bribe him. He tried to give him money to go away.”
The state attorney general's office has received a dozen consumer complaints about Driveways Corp. since 2006, including three so far this year. The company also rates a grade of F from the Better Business Bureau and has been the subject of some scathing commentary for its high pressure sales tactics, shoddy work and beer drinking on the online business review service Angie's List.
David Stanley maintained that his company has a good reputation. A few dozen complaints arising from several thousand paving jobs is not unusual, he said, adding that the company's rating by the Better Business Bureau (of which the company is not a member) has risen as high as C-plus recently.
“Pastor David” has been quoted as describing the setup inside Driveways Corp. as “the business supports the church.”
The Church of the End Times ran cable television programs of its services on local access TV and Channel 3 until a year or so ago. It now posts videos on its YouTube channel, including several featuring “Pastor David” performing purported exorcisms.
On Oct. 1, after Dennis and David Stanley were arrested by Uxbridge police, both brothers were charged with resisting arrest and David was charged with disturbing the peace after a gathering of church followers shouting that they don't obey the laws of man caused an hourlong standoff with police from several towns.
The next day, when officers escorted Mrs. Stanley to regain custody of the house, seven teenage girls were removed from the Stanleys' home and given trespassing notices.
Mrs. Stanley claimed in her affidavit for the restraining order that Dennis brought 10 teenagers to sleep with him in the bedroom, forcing her to sleep downstairs. He allegedly said it was God's will.
“It's absolutely a cult when you're controlled to do things and they cut you off from family members, saying they're (the family members) demon-possessed,” Mrs. Stanley said in an interview.
The instigator behind the church's abusive practices, Mrs. Stanley said, is her brother-in-law, David H. Stanley.
The charges against the brothers are being investigated by Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr.'s office, a spokesman for the DA said.
David Stanley — who said he does not have a lawyer — denied that his church is a cult and that the brothers are coercing anyone,
“If you ask any of the girls, there's zero control,” Mr. Stanley said.
As for criticism that his exorcisms are phony, Mr. Stanley responded: “I would never waste my time on something that's fake.”
“It's only brought persecution,” he said. “I actually feel like I'm trying to make the world a better place.”
David, his wife, Jennifer, and at least eight children — Jennifer is expecting another baby soon — live next door to Dennis and Beth Stanley at 51 Murphy's Way.
Beth Stanley blamed David for coming up with the idea that she and Jennifer sign over their joint ownership of the houses and other assets to their husbands.
Mrs. Gault, mother of the Stanley brothers, said the church saw an exodus of members a few years ago after the brothers started insisting that all female church members sign over all joint property, including cars, to their husbands. David Stanley denied that claim.
Beth Stanley said: “When Dave figured out how to control his wife by using other women, he started making a formula for everyone else so they could do this.”
Beth said that Dennis would flirt and lure teenage girls into the church, and bedroom, from stores and fast-food restaurants around the area. In their home, the girls would sit on his lap and caress him. It was another “hoop” that David allegedly taught was necessary for her to go through to find real love.
Mrs. Gault said outside the courthouse Oct. 5, “There's definitely sex going on with these young girls.”
Mrs. Stanley found explicit text messages on his cellphone, from September, between Dennis and one of the young women. His messages included vulgar slang terms for female and male genitalia.
Dennis denied accusations that he was having sex with the girls. “I'm friends with all the girls. We hang out — maybe give a massage; nothing sexual.”
He explained one suggestive text message as meaning, “'Clean my house up for me good.'
“They always want to come over and clean and take care of me. I talk to girls like I'm a male. It's not perverted. That's the way God created me to be.”
Stephanie Stanley said she was convinced to attend her husband's cousins' church a few years ago. At first, she said, it was a nice, Bible-based service.
About four years ago, she questioned some of David's teachings. Her husband came home one day and told her David didn't want her at church anymore.
“David doesn't like strong women,” Stephanie said.
She and Beth Stanley are concerned that David and church followers believe that the baby that Jennifer, David's wife, is due to deliver soon will be an angel and have wings.
“David will pick that baby up and throw it because he thinks it can fly,” Stephanie feared. “If David says it can happen, he assumes it will happen.”
Stephanie said that most of the 50 or so church members are either Driveways Corp. employees or vulnerable teenagers, mostly girls, picked up by David or Dennis. According to accounts of former members and relatives, the church once regularly drew as many as 70 but the flock has dwindled to as few as 30 at recent services.
“The few adults who go think it's great because they got their kids off drugs. But they get sucked into this … thing,” she said.
“David preaches you're going to have money, you're going to have fame,” she said. “But they all end up divorced and broke.”
The Stanleys are part of a large Romani Gypsy clan, according to family members.
“The way they dress, the way they talk, the way they think is all influenced by Gypsies,” Beth said, who described her own ancestry as French-Indian.
Stephanie said David and Dennis made Gypsy culture look much worse than it really is.
“The Gypsies treat their women like princesses, not Stepford Wives,” she said.
News stories including a 2010 series in the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph have reported that many families with the Stanley surname around the state and the country are involved in paving and painting scams.
Dale Vinnicombe, who worked at Driveways Corp. for years in sales and said he was once a close friend and roommate of David Stanley, said he finally left because he couldn't put up with the shoddy quality of work and service being provided.
“They did one-third of the quality for the full cost,” he said.
Still, David seemed to do quite well with his property and flashy possessions, Mr. Vinnicombe said.
The brothers took family members on lavish vacations to Florida and Mexico and threw regular weekend family feasts at their homes in Uxbridge, Mrs. Gault said.
Sandy Tremblay of Worcester grew up with the then-Beth Merrill and the Stanley family in the Manchaug section of Sutton.
She said about the Gypsy culture, “They kind of march to the beat of their own drum.”
Ms. Tremblay said she was disturbed by some of the “just out there” behavior she saw with the Stanleys a few years ago, including heavy drinking at a wake. She was appalled when Beth said she had prayed for forgiveness beforehand, “so she was covered.”
“Whatever she (Beth) converted to, she converted for her husband,” Ms. Tremblay said. “It was always a cult.
“His brother David had control over him,” she continued. “She went along with it.”
As for the half-million-dollar house, expensive toys, recreational vehicles and fancy vacation pictures Beth posted on Facebook, Ms. Tremblay said, “She was profiting from it too.”
While many in the community — and Stanley family — described the Church of the End Times as a cult, religious scholars avoid that term as a stereotype that further alienates the group from society.
Mathew N. Schmalz, associate professor of religious studies at The College of the Holy Cross, said the Church of the End Times clearly shares characteristics with “Millenialistic” groups, which talk of conversions and changes in personal relationships to give witness to the end times.
“The problem is when you have these small groups, things can go off the rails very quickly,” Mr. Schmalz said.
“One of the problems is this person (the leader) becomes the message,” he added. “The group leader's desires and feelings become automatically the word of God.”
Mr. Schmalz said that the church could now be in a volatile situation as pressure is put on it from the media, government and law enforcement.
In some instances, such as the siege in 1993 on David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the outside pressure contributed to a bunker mentality in the compound and the group reacted violently.
“It takes someone willing to engage with the group on terms they understand,” Mr. Schmalz said about how to defuse religious movements run amok.
Uxbridge Interim Police Chief Peter Emerick said that an investigation into the Stanleys, related to recent arrests, was in the early stages and he couldn't comment about details.
“Unfortunately they were business owners that did not always have satisfied customers,” he said, explaining that complaints had to be sorted out carefully.
The church's videos showing exorcisms and numerous complaints from Murphy's Way neighbors about the Stanleys' wild behavior has added to the community's unease with the church's activities.
“My job as police chief is to reduce that perception of fear and the fear of crime,” Chief Emerick said.
Police logs show Uxbridge police were called to Murphy's Way more than 45 times in the past year for complaints related to motor vehicle disturbances, loud partying, domestic disturbances and reckless use of dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles, among other issues.
As the community addresses the provocative actions of the church and its leaders, inside Dennis and David Stanley's combined families are a dozen children growing up in unusual circumstances.
“We're doing counseling with DSS (now the state Department of Children and Families) because we have to be deprogrammed,” Beth Stanley said.
She described life under the church's teaching.
“It's like the kids come last and the men are first,” she said. “I can't even be a mom because I've been programmed to take care of these men.”
http://www.telegram.com/article/20121014/NEWS/110149692/0/NEWS06?utm
