"I had to force him to testify with a court order. He got no compensation, no reduction in sentence at the time because he had already been sentenced, " Equels said. "He seemed sincere and truly remorseful."

Barbara Goolsby, a lawyer who also represented the Opa- locka tenants, said she found that Rozier's allegation fit the Yahwehs' history.

"It sounded perfectly plausible to me because of the lawless nature of the things people told me under oath that they did and Yahweh Ben Yahweh did, " Goolsby said.

"They have always spoken out of both sides of their mouths. Clearly, they've never been law-and-order people."

Goolsby said she turned over transcripts of the trial and other documents to FBI agents in August. The agents also took records that showed misuse of welfare payments by a temple member, she said.

Equels said the Yahwehs' finances are difficult to trace because many of their transactions, including some real-estate purchases, were made in cash and not always recorded.

Temple bank records subpoenaed by the tenants' lawyers show that the temple spent $200,000 to $250,000 a month. But there was little accounting of where the money came from.

"They were running a cash economy there, " Equels said.

An accountant's report shows that, besides the contributions, the temple had an income of several hundred thousand dollars a year from its rental properties.

The Yahwehs have boasted that temple members controlled more than 25 businesses.

But it's not clear how many of those businesses actually existed or how much the Yahwehs earned from them.

A temple publication lists enterprises ranging from cabinet makers to landscaping services operated by temple followers -- all with addresses and phone numbers belonging to temple properties. None of the businesses are listed in state corporate records.

Grocery stores the group manages in Overtown and Little Haiti are almost empty of shoppers.

The temple's account balance was usually low at the end of the month, bank records show. The highest it ever reached was $131,000 in April 1989. A year ago, the balance stood at just $27,292.

Rozier testified that Judith Israel had given him cash to buy one of the guns used in the Opa-locka murders. Rozier said he got the gun from a drug dealer who was a former Yahweh.

But when lawyers pored through temple financial records to get the $1 million for the Opa-locka tenants' settlement, Goolsby said, they found no evidence of large amounts of cash. They weren't expecting to.

"Let me put it this way, " Goolsby said. "I didn't expect Yahweh Ben Yahweh to have an account at Southeast Bank."