Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps Case

The Case

The Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps (ACMTC) case is a New Mexico criminal prosecution centered on child abuse, child sexual abuse, kidnapping and medical neglect inside a militant religious group led by Deborah Green and her husband James Green. The central charges grew out of the 2014 death of a 12-year-old boy at the group's rural compound in Cibola County and a broader pattern of abuse against children raised inside the organization. The case became one of the most significant cult-abuse prosecutions in the American Southwest, culminating in a 2025 New Mexico Supreme Court ruling that reinstated Deborah Green's child abuse conviction.

The Crime

ACMTC operated as a tightly controlled, militaristic religious community in which members took ranks such as "General" and lived under the absolute authority of its co-founders. According to court records and reporting, children inside the compound were subjected to physical abuse, sexual abuse, and severe deprivation, while adult members were coerced into rigid family and labor structures dictated by group leadership. The criminal case turned on allegations that the Greens and other leaders treated children as property of the ministry, including refusing outside medical care for a seriously ill 12-year-old boy who later died on the compound. The New Mexico Supreme Court specifically described Deborah Green's conduct toward that child as "medically neglecting" him in the period before his death.

The Victims

The victims in the ACMTC case are children who grew up inside the group's compound in rural Cibola County, New Mexico. The most prominent named victim in public reporting is Enoch Miller, described as 13 years old at the time of his death in 2014, while the Supreme Court opinion focuses on a 12-year-old boy who died at the compound that same year. Survivor accounts, including those of Sarah Green, describe a childhood marked by violence, fear, and total isolation from the outside world, with children punished, separated from parents and used as tools of the leadership's authority. Additional minors were identified as victims of sexual abuse and kidnapping when prosecutors filed the initial charges in 2017.

Investigation

Law enforcement scrutiny of ACMTC intensified after the child's 2014 death drew attention to conditions inside the Cibola County compound. In 2017, Deborah and James Green were arrested in New Mexico on child sexual abuse and kidnapping charges, with investigators building their case on survivor testimony, internal group records and the circumstances of the boy's death. Reporting by outlets such as A&E's interview with journalist Harrison Hill helped document the group's history, structure and the experiences of those who escaped. Background material on the organization, including its origins and ideology, is summarized in the Wikipedia entry on ACMTC and a parallel religion wiki overview.

Trial and Verdict

Deborah Green was convicted at trial on child abuse charges tied to the death of the 12-year-old boy at the compound, alongside related counts involving abuse of children in the group's care. In 2022, however, her convictions were thrown out after a court found that prosecutors had withheld evidence during the original proceedings, opening a prolonged appellate fight over whether the case could stand. In April 2025, the New Mexico Supreme Court reinstated her child abuse conviction, ruling that the lower court's decision was incompatible with a finding of actual innocence and that the conviction for medically neglecting the child should be restored. Other ACMTC leaders and associates remained accused in connected proceedings, with some awaiting trial in the years that followed.

Today

ACMTC has been widely characterized in survivor accounts, news features and independent reporting as a high-control religious group whose leaders used theology to justify severe abuse of children. The Greens' prosecution remains one of the few US cases in which a cult leader has been held criminally responsible for the medical-neglect death of a child inside a closed religious community. Public interest in the case has grown through long-form journalism and audio documentaries, including a dedicated podcast episode on ACMTC and video investigations such as this YouTube documentary and a follow-up report. With Deborah Green's child abuse conviction restored and additional defendants still facing the courts, the ACMTC case continues to shape conversations in the US about cult accountability, child protection inside insular religious groups, and the limits of religious freedom when children's lives are at stake.