He called the massive law-enforcement action at the temple a post-election "grandstand play."

"I guess he was waiting for the excitement of his wife's re-election to be over, " Rubin said of Lehtinen. Ileana Ros- Lehtinen, a Dade Republican, won re-election Tuesday to the House of Representatives.

Wednesday's indictment documents 14 homicides in Dade, some dating back to 1981. Most of the victims were poor. Although Dade and Miami homicide detectives long believed Yahwehs responsible, most of the murders remained unprosecuted for years.

According to the indictment, Yahweh established an ultra- secret group called the brotherhood. And in order to join, "an individual had to murder a white devil and bring a severed body part to Mitchell as proof of the killing."

Yahweh also ordered murders to retaliate against defectors and dissidents, prosecutors charged.

"All hypocrites must die, " he once told his followers.

Yahweh death squads sometimes shot and stabbed neighborhood people who opposed efforts to collect donations, sell books and soft drinks and buy property.

In one case, Yahweh, the blue-eyed son of a Pentacostal minister from Oklahoma, displayed the ear of Cecil Branch, a sanitation worker.

Perhaps the most bizarre homicide was the public execution at the Temple of Love of Leonard Dupree, a wiry, 22- year-old former national karate champion from New Orleans.

In September 1983, Yahweh ordered Amri Israel, born Walter Lightburn, to fight Dupree. Yahwehs all take the last name Israel.

When Dupree, the karate champ, won the fight, Yahweh Ben Yahweh allegedly cried, "Get him!" Thirty to 50 frenzied disciples, assembled in the sewing room, beat Dupree.

Mikael Israel, born Maurice Woodside, struck him with a stick. Job Israel, born Richard Ingraham, struck him with an automobile tire jack, the indictment said.

Then, Lightburn and Ahinidad Israel, born Ernest Lee James Jr., and a third individual "disposed of the body of Leonard Dupree by loading the body in a truck and burying it at an unknown location, " the indictment said.

A defector told The Herald last summer that the grave was a long, shallow trench 18 inches deep in the Everglades.

But by the time police searched for the body, much of the once-swampy terrain had been paved over by concrete. Dupree's corpse was never found.

It wasn't until The Herald spoke to Dupree's parents that they learned details of what happened to their son -- seven years after the crime.

The father, Lartius, 64, died two weeks ago, unaware of the forthcoming indictment.

His widow, Mary, said Wednesday that it's hard to accept the fact that Leonard is dead. "I assume it happened like what they're saying, but until they find a body, I'll never be sure."

The FBI entered the Yahweh case after the May 1986 firebombings on Southwest 14th Avenue in Delray Beach. Neighbors thought the Yahwehs were retaliating because a resident had been in a fight with sect members soliciting contributions.

Another highly publicized episode occurred in October 1986, when the sect attempted to evict tenants from a rundown Opa- locka apartment complex.

Anthony Brown and Rudy Broussard resisted fiercely and were filmed on TV. Ten hours later they were shot to death. Metro detective Rex Remley arrested Neariah Israel, born Robert Rozier, a onetime pro football player.

The detective went to work on all the unsolved murders, along with the FBI. Rozier confessed to four murders, including the two at Opa-locka.