"They are a hate group, " said Willie Simms of Dade's Community Relations Board in 1986. "These people are brainwashed. I fear for the city."

Yet it was hard to deny the successes of the Temple of Love. Their economic achievements impressed black leaders such as former Miami Commissioner Athalie Range, who once called the Yahwehs' self-help philosophy "progressive."

Then came Opa-locka.

Just before noon on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 1986, six buses, two limousines, a van and several cars pulled up to a slum apartment complex in Opa-locka.

About 75 white-robed, turbaned Yahwehs got out. Some started to clean the apartments that the sect had recently purchased. Soon, Yahweh "guards, " carrying six-foot hardwood sticks called "staffs of life, " were kicking tenants out of their homes.

Early Thursday morning, when residents Rudolph Broussard and Anthony Brown resisted, they were shot execution-style.

Robert Ernest Rozier, a former football pro who went by his Yahweh name of Neariah Israel, was charged and later pleaded guilty in the two murders, as well as two others. Although the church eventually excommunicated Rozier, the damage was done.

In a move that would become one of his trademarks, Mitchell tried to sop up the bad press with a public-relations blitz.

He invited local reporters to tour his fortress-like temple, downplaying any suggested analogies between the sect and Jonestown in Guyana. And he hired someone many considered the perfect front man: Ellis Rubin, a white, Jewish and press-savvy lawyer from Miami.

But the PR could only work so much magic. In 1988, Rozier pleaded guilty to four murders -- Broussard and Brown from the Opa-locka takeover, and two drifters slain in late 1986.

Again, Yahweh and Rubin worked damage control, this time offering the sect's help in patrolling South Florida synagogues to deter increasing anti-Semitic violence.

But by now, Rozier was talking up a storm, linking Yahweh and other sect members to a number of ritualistic slayings in Florida and other states. Yahweh testified in federal court last year, denying any role in the murders.

"All we have, " Yahweh told U.S. District Judge James Kehoe, "is a record of peace."

Finally, with the empire worth an estimated $8 million, the dominoes began to tumble.

In mid-1989, Kehoe ruled the sect had waged a campaign of extortion and terror against residents of the Opa-locka apartments.

The sect was forced to give up one of their properties to pay off a court judgment. And city of Miami inspectors began cracking down on code violations at a Yahweh-run school.

Last May, the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami confirmed it was investigating the Temple of Love. Sources said prosecutors suspected Yahweh and his lieutenants of running a criminal enterprise from 1981 to 1986, dealing in extortion, fire bombing and murder.

But the roller-coaster ride was not yet quite over for Mitchell. One Sunday last month, about 2,000 followers of the self-proclaimed messiah came to hear a speech by their leader.

Yahweh told the group that following his religious laws will help lead to prosperity. He called his speech How to Move from Poverty to Riches.

During the show, a representative from the city of Miami stepped forward to hand over a proclamation signed by Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez.

It was presented 31 days before Mitchell would be arrested in New Orleans, his church thrown into disarray.

The proclamation designated Sunday, Oct. 7, 1990, as "Yahweh Ben Yahweh Day."