A Manhattan cult that preys upon rich New Yorkers is increasing upstate, and placing new recruits to work on round the clock renovations and landscaping, in keeping with public information and a supply near the group.
On June 29, 2021, a non-public firm linked to members of Odyssey Research Groupbought a sprawling compound on 100 wooded acres within the outskirts of Margaretville, a village of 700 nestled within the Catskill Mountains. The property was bought six months after the dying of OSG’s longtime chief, Sharon Gans Horn, an erstwhile actor who had a small half within the 1972 movie “Slaughterhouse-5.”
Also called The Work and A Fourth Manner College, the group beneath Gans Horn’s management has lengthy been accused of sexual and baby abuse in addition to siphoning money from its members to pay for its leaders’ extravagant existence in Manhattan, Boston, the Hamptons and Mexico.
Starting in February, a bunch of some 15 new recruits, who pay $400 a month to take part in twice weekly “examine” classes in Manhattan, was pushed to the Margaretville property and put to work digging ditches for the development of a pavilion, the supply advised The Publish. The native municipality authorized a allow on Could 27 to construct a 2,880 sq. foot pavilion on the property, in keeping with public information.
“They're constructing the pavilion and in addition farming,” the supply advised The Publish, including that the property will possible be used as a retreat for the group. OSG has held retreats at properties in Montana, and the Boston-based arm of the group owns three adjoining properties in rural New Hampshire purchased between 1997 and 2001, which altogether are actually price greater than $1 million, in keeping with public information.
“They get members to do all of the work,” the supply claimed. “Lengthy hours. No pay. Intense. Persons are taken there [Margaretville] with out understanding the place they’re going.”
Gans Horn and her playwright husband Alex Horn, who died in 2007, co-founded OSG in San Francisco within the Seventies. The group, identified then as Theater of All Prospects, was partly set as much as placed on performs by Horn.
The couple shuttered their San Francisco theater in December 1978 after they realized that police and social welfare investigators had been interviewing their former college students who alleged sexual abuse and beatings, in keeping with stories. Gans Horn and her husband fled first to Montana, after which ended up in New York Metropolis within the Nineteen Eighties after they established OSG and lived in a collection of opulent properties, together with an residence in Greenwich Village the place actress Marisa Tomei was their next-door neighbor.
The group registered OSG as a for-profit firm in 2001, and presently has 200 members on the East Coast, cult consultants say.
Spencer Schneider, a New York legal professional who spent 23 years in OSG and just lately wrote a memoir about his experiences, “Manhattan Cult Story: My Unbelievable True Story of Intercourse, Crimes, Chaos, and Survival” mentioned leaders frequently intruded into the private lives of their “college students.” Gans Horn organized marriages, together with Schneider’s, and at one level advised him to impregnate his 19-year-old stepdaughter. He refused.
“It’s very heavy thoughts management,” Schneider advised The Publish Wednesday. “I do know it’s onerous to imagine, however [members] simply don’t look them up. They’re afraid to look. When you do look them up and inform somebody about it, you're punished and berated in entrance of the group.”
The secluded three-bedroom property within the Catskills is situated “on the very finish of a city street rising a number of hundred toes” close to a reservoir, in keeping with an inventory. The three,161 sq. foot dwelling has “hovering ceilings” and “theatrical lighting,” in keeping with the itemizing. It additionally has “glass partitions in sudden areas [that] suffuse rooms with mild, creating angular luminous splashes in every single place,” the itemizing says. The $925,000 buy was finalized in July 2021 by MR100 LLC, a non-public firm managed by Greg Koch, a contractor who has been accused of being one of many alleged leaders of OSG, in keeping with court docket papers.
Koch, together with three different alleged leaders, is known as in a class-action regulation go well with filed in Manhattan State Supreme Court docket final yr by two girls who accuse the group of utilizing them as slave labor between 2005 and 2019. The ladies — Stephanie Rosenberg and Marjorie Hochman — mentioned they labored at no cost, cleansing and doing renovations into the wee hours on luxurious properties, together with on an $8.5 million residence within the Plaza Resort utilized by Gans Horn as a residence earlier than her dying from COVID in January 2021.
On the time that he bought the Margaretville property, Koch signed paperwork for an $832,500 mortgage granted by LDS New York Realty, a Massachusetts-based firm, in keeping with public information. That realty firm is managed by Paul Nickelsberg, who was amongst a small group of traders tied to a different firm — Unit 405 Plaza LLC — that purchased Gans’ Plaza Resort residence in 2008, court docket information present. It’s not clear what number of properties OSG presently owns. Previously, they owned properties within the Hamptons, Montana and Mexico.
Koch occupies the master suite within the Margaretville property, in keeping with the supply. “Everybody else sleeps on the ground,” the supply mentioned, including that the group has stepped up its recruitment efforts since Gans Horn’s dying. Leaders have prevailed upon members to encourage their associates to affix the trigger, the supply mentioned.
A 39-year-old New York Metropolis-based musician who didn't need to be recognized revealed that a good friend recruited him to affix OSG in April. “I used to be in a darkish place and obtained along with a good friend who belonged to OSG,” he advised The Publish. The good friend who pressured him to affix advised him the group forbade members from consulting a therapist or researching the group on-line.
One other current tried recruit, a 23-year-old designer for a tech startup, advised The Publish that she was approached by Minerva Taylor, considered one of OSG’s leaders, at a espresso store in June whereas she was chatting with associates. After a month throughout which they met to have espresso and chat, Taylorinvited her to a gathering final week at a French evangelical church on West sixteenth St, she mentioned.
“One of many issues that was actually off-putting on the assembly was that as Greg [Koch} was talking, somebody would go as much as him and always serve him San Pellegrino water,” she advised The Publish Thursday. “On the finish of the night time once I requested if I may have one of many ten bottles of water that had been left over, they mentioned, ‘No, no, that’s just for the leaders.’”
The designer mentioned she left after one assembly, for which she mentioned she paid $150. “I went dwelling and began Googling everybody’s identify, and located the lawsuit and all of the articles about them. I by no means went again.”
OSG follows the teachings of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, a Russian mystic and thinker, who additionally impressed the Fellowship of Mates, a California-based cult well-liked with Google staff, in keeping with a lawsuit filed in California Superior Court docket in August.
“The fundamental thrust of OSG’s teachings is that mankind is asleep and so as to awaken they have to attend an esoteric faculty — a hidden faculty that teaches increased data and self-awareness,” Schneider mentioned. “It’s much like Scientology in that they've charismatic leaders and hand-picked successors, however the massive distinction is that OSG is totally hidden and secret. No person needs to speak about it.”
The musician mentioned he was instantly suspicious however when he tried to distance himself from OSG, the strain to remain elevated.
“My alarm bells had been ringing the second my good friend invited me,” he mentioned, including that he started researching the group after which confronted leaders at a “examine session” final week.
Armed with a digital camera and microphone hidden in a pen, the musician mentioned he requested the group in regards to the class-action regulation go well with and allegations of slave labor.
“They flat out denied the lawsuit and mentioned they didn’t know who Sharon Gans was,” he mentioned. “It was superb, once I introduced all of this up they didn't flinch. It’s as in the event that they had been ready for somebody to ask all of those uncomfortable questions.”
“I went again and recorded a category as a result of I wished to assist folks perceive how harmful they're,” mentioned the musician “Recruitment is a giant take care of these folks, and I obtained the sense they're increasing.”
A number of requests for remark to a Manhattan lawyer representing Koch and different OSG members weren't returned this week.
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