RATON, New Mexico (STPNS) -- The attorney for the leader of what many people refer to as a cult that maintains its compound northeast of Des Moines told a judge in Raton Friday that Wayne Bent's practice of lying with naked children is a "religious healing practice" and has no sexual connotations.

Defense attorney Sarah Montoya of Raton also presented the judge with a motion seeking to have Bent's grand jury indictment thrown out. A copy of the indictment, formally filed by Montoya in Union County District Court in Clayton Friday morning, was not readily available to The Range Friday or Monday.



During Friday's arraignment of Bent, Las Vegas District Judge Gerald Baca - assigned to the case after Eighth Judicial District judges John Paternoster and Sam Sanchez were excused from the case - said a motions hearing will be scheduled later to hear arguments regarding Montoya's motion.

Baca also told the prosecution and defense attorneys to plan for the case going to trial in December. The case is filed in Union County since that is where Bent and his followers live at their compound near the Colorado border about 30 miles northeast of Des Moines. The case is expected to play out at the courthouse in Clayton unless a change of venue is sought and granted. Friday morning's hearing was held in Raton only as a convenience to accommodate the attorneys, according to a clerk at the Union County District Court.

Emilio Chavez, a prosecutor based in the Taos headquarters of the Eighth Judicial District Attorney's Office, handled the prosecution side during Friday's arraignment.

The 67-year-old Bent, known to his followers in The Lord Our Righteousness Church as Michael Travesser, was arrested May 6, almost two weeks after state police and social workers removed three teen-agers from the compound known as Strong City.

According to the affidavit for the arrest warrant for Bent, on three separate occasions - July 31, 2006, Aug. 2, 2006, and April 13, 2007 - he allegedly inappropriately touched girls when each "lay naked" with him. The girls at the time were ages 16, 17 and 12, according to the affidavit. The two oldest girls are sisters, according to a writing by Bent on his group's website, in which he admitted to lying with girls July 31 and Aug. 2 while each was naked and putting "my hand on her heart."

The website has since been taken off line.

The district attorney dropped charges originally filed against Bent in Clayton Magistrate Court and instead sought a grand jury indictment to avoid the alleged victims having to testify in open court during a preliminary hearing. The grand jury, which conducts its hearings in private, indicted Bent May 20 on two counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The indictment is in connection to the alleged incidents on July 31, 2006, and Aug. 2, 2006. If convicted on all counts, Bent faces up to 33 years in prison. District Attorney Donald Gallegos said at the time of the indictment that he thought the case involving the third girl was not strong enough at that time to present to the grand jury.

Baca ordered that Bent remain free on an unsecured $150,000 bond. Prosecutor Chavez sought a $50,000 cash bond, but Montoya argued that her client can be trusted since he has not fled and has shown up for all his hearings in the past.

In telling the judge that Bent's actions with the girls within the "religious community" had only religious purposes, she also noted that she believes one of the alleged victims will testify that there was "no sexual touching" in the contact with Bent. Montoya argued that Bent's religious freedom should not be compromised by charging him with crimes.

About 15 of Bent's followers sat in the gallery during Friday's hearing. Across the courtroom, the hearing was filmed by an Albuquerque television station.

Bent has denied any criminal action, instead claiming the girls came to him without any prompting from him and that each claimed to be directed by God to lie naked with him. According to Bent's writing on the group's website before it was taken down, "this was not about sex, but about healing."

According to material that had been posted on the website, Bent is a former Seventh-day Adventist minister who founded The Lord Our Righteousness Church in 1987 and separated from Adventism. After the new California church split - losing one-third of its membership - in 1989, it located in Idaho in 1990 and eventually came to Union County in 2000, the website said.

The website indicated that church members believe "their unchangeable course" is "to translate from this world into heaven," meaning they will be taken off the earth and into heaven while still alive.