...Jacques Robidoux was one of the leaders of a small Attleboro cult known as The Body. He was charged with murder after his son, Samuel, died three days before his first birthday in April 1999...

ATTLEBORO, Mass. -- The man considered the mastermind behind a controversial religious sect in Attleboro has died...

...religious sect in Attleboro, which made headlines seven years ago after Samuel Robidoux, Roland's grandson starved to death just before his 1st birthday. Members of the group withheld solid food from him, believing they were following God's orders. Jacques Robidoux, Samuel's father, is serving life in prison for second-degree murder...

For 51 days, the Massachusetts couple allowed their son, Samuel, to slowly and painfully starve to death right in front of their eyes. The Robidoux's were part of a small religious sect called "The Body"...)

"It bothers me terribly that people are used and abused in the name of God," said Robert Pardon, director of the nonprofit New England Institute for Religious Research and the Meadow Haven safe house...)

"Karen is doing pretty good," said her counselor, Robert Pardon, the director of Meadow Haven, a rehabilitation home for people who leave cults or other "high control" groups...)

Michelle Mingo, 38, who had spent the past three years and 10 months in jail awaiting trial, was freed yesterday because her 2-year sentence was deemed to have already been served.

Mingo, whose brother Jacques Robidoux was convicted two years ago of first-degree murder, pleaded guilty to two counts of accessory before the fact of assault and battery on a child under 14...)

...She was freed yesterday after pleading guilty to two counts of being an accessory before the fact of assault and battery on a child under 14 and was sentenced to time served by Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Donovan...

...According to Pardon, the sect continues to function, is still led by Roland Robidoux, and has added another family to its membership.)

A member of a religious sect whose self-described vision from God led to the starvation death of an infant pleaded guilty Tuesday to an accessory charge and was allowed to go free.

Michelle Mingo pleaded guilty to two counts of being an accessory before the fact to an assault and battery on a child. A judge sentenced her to concurrent 21/2-year terms on each count, but because she has already been in custody for nearly four years, she was allowed to go free.

Mingo, a member of a tiny religious sect known as The Body, was charged after her nephew, Samuel Robidoux, died of starvation three days before his first birthday in 1999...)

Michelle Mingo is scheduled to appear in Taunton Superior Court Tuesday afternoon for a change of plea hearing on a charge of being an accessory before the fact to an assault and battery on a child...

...Mingo, a member of a tiny religious sect known as "The Body," was charged after her nephew, Samuel Robidoux, died of starvation three days before his first birthday in 1999...)

She was sentenced Tuesday to 2� years in prison for the starvation death of her infant son, but was released after receiving credit for 35 months served before the trial.

Ms. Robidoux will participate in a treatment program to help her develop her own identity, said MeadowHaven founders Robert and Judith Pardon...)

...Robidoux, who has lost custody of her four children, will remain in a cult deprogramming center and continue intensive therapy...

...The stunning verdict closed yet another chapter in the bizarre history of the controversial religious sect. Dubbed The Body, the isolationist group believes in paddling children as young as 1 and rejects the authority of the government and doctors...)

...Karen Robidoux has been free on $100,000 cash bail since last fall and has been living in a Lakeville facility for former members of cults that is operated by Robert Pardon...)

A former member of a religious sect was cleared of murder charges Tuesday but convicted of assault and battery for starving her infant son to death to fulfill a prophecy...

...Robidoux and her husband Jacques were members of a tiny religious sect that rejects modern medicine. After another sect member told them about a message she received from God, they began withholding solid food from their son, Samuel. The baby died in 1999 just days shy of his first birthday...)

...A jury of eight men and four women deliberated for two hours yesterday and will resume deliberations today. They will decide whether Robidoux, 28, should be convicted of second-degree murder, manslaughter or a lesser charge for the 1999 starvation death of her 11-month-old son, Samuel. Her husband, Jacques Robidoux, is serving life for the boy's death while her sister-in-law, Michelle Mingo, is awaiting trial on accessory charges for allegedly concocting the "vision from God" that led the couple to stop feeding the boy.

Shea called The Body religious sect an "idiotic group" that did nothing as the boy starved over 51 days...)

The prosecutor countered that the real victim was Samuel Robidoux, the baby who died in 1999 just shy of his first birthday after slowly wasting away for months while his parents withheld solid food.

The jury began deliberations Monday afternoon in the trial of Karen Robidoux, who is charged with second-degree murder...)

...Robidoux, who faces second degree murder charges for the 1999 starvation death of her 11-month-old son, Samuel, broke down sobbing as Ebert told the Taunton Superior Court jury that she was unable to make rational decisions because the group manipulated and controlled her life...)

Robidoux, who allegedly let her infant Samuel starve to death in 1999 to comply with a religious prophecy of a fellow sect member, spent her entire adult life trapped inside a "destructive cult" whose members considered her the weak link in their direct connection with God, said Ronald S. Ebert, a forensic psychologist testifying as a defense witness in Bristol Superior Court, where Robidoux is on trial for second-degree murder...)

...Horton, who is Karen Robidoux's older sister, and her husband left The Body religious sect shortly after Samuel died in April 1999, just days before his first birthday. She said the boy went from being a ``chubby, active baby,'' to a motionless skeleton...)

...Robidoux, 29, is facing second-degree murder charges in the death of her infant son, Samuel, who starved to death just three days before his first birthday, on April 26, 1999. Karen Robidoux's husband, Jacques -- who, along with Karen, was a member of a religious sect known as "The Body" -- was convicted of first-degree murder in his son's death in June 2002 and sentenced to life in prison.

Jacques' father, Roland Robidoux, leads the sect, which is still practicing with at least 12 members in Attleboro...)

"We were baby machines," said Nicole Kidson, a Maine woman who was cast out of The Body religious sect in 1998 because she refused to give up her eyeglasses. "You felt like a cow - nursing and pregnant all the time."...)

David Corneau cited his religious beliefs in refusing to be a prosecution witness against former sect member Karen Robidoux, 28, whose trial on a charge of second-degree murder began Thursday...

...Corneau, 36, testified against Robidoux's husband, Jacques, in 2002. Jacques Robidoux, one of the leaders of the tiny sect called "The Body," was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his son and is now serving a life sentence...)

...The allegations of systematic abuse of children in The Body religious sect were made by Mingo during the trial of Karen Robidoux, who is charged with second-degree murder for the 1999 starvation death of her 11-month-old son, Samuel. Prosecutors say Robidoux, 29, starved her son to death to fulfill a religious prophecy handed down by Michelle Mingo, who is Roland Robidoux's daughter and Mingo's ex-wife...)

TAUNTON, Mass. -- Testimony is under way Thursday in the second-degree murder trial of Karen Robidoux, the former Attleboro religious sect member charged in the starvation death of her baby.

In his opening statement to the jury, prosecutor Walter Shea described how Samuel Robidoux slowly starved over a 51-day period, after his parents took him off solid food on the basis of a "vision" from another sect member...)(Photo of Karen Robidoux included.)

A Taunton Superior Court judge issued an arrest warrant for David Corneau, a member of The Body religious sect who led authorities in 2000 to a Mainegrave site where they found the remains of Karen Robidoux's son, Samuel. Corneau was arrested at a gas station and was being held last night...)

His parents, members of a tiny religious cult in southeastern Massachusetts, withheld solid food from the boy for two months after another cult member said she received a message from God, according to prosecutors.

When Samuel's mother, Karen Robidoux, goes on trial this week, her defense will paint a more sympathetic picture of a woman they say was brainwashed by a cult and terrified to go against the wishes of her husband...)

But on Wednesday, she will go on trial for allegedly systematically starving her son to death to fulfill a bizarre cult prophecy nearly five years ago...

...Robidoux's husband, Jacques Robidoux, is already serving a life sentence without parole after being convicted last year of first degree murder for starving the couple's 18-month-old son. Karen Robidoux has since distanced herself from the Attleboro-based fundamentalist sect - known as The Body. She is free on $100,000 bail and living in a southeastern Massachusetts group home for people who've fled high-control cults...)