Kingdom of God Global Church founder David E. Taylor seemed to know exactly who’d be coming for him.
“They gonna be in here with their FBI jackets on,” the man who calls himself God’s best friend allegedly told his workers in an undated meeting described in federal court records. “You don’t scare me. God’s gonna to get you. … I’m going to be looking at you in Hell and you are going to be having your little FBI jacket on. Who gonna save you then?”
A federal grand jury in Michigan quietly indicted Taylor and his alleged co-conspirator, Michelle Brannon, in July. On Aug. 27, flashbang grenades woke residents of an upscale gated community in Ocala as FBI agents stormed a 10,000-square-foot home on a wooded cul-de-sac.
Commotion came to the even ritzier Avila community in Tampa an hour later as agents raided an $8 million mansion along the private golf course.
The FBI called it “operation divine deception,” the culmination of a multi-year, nationwide investigation. County records, interviews with neighbors and scant news reports from over the years color in a still-developing picture of what went on inside these Florida mansions, where blacked-out SUVs lined driveways and neighbors seldom saw people come and go.
Taylor and Brannon are charged with coercing church disciples into working without pay and then conspiring to launder the proceeds. They could face decades in prison.
The homes in Florida were among nine Kingdom of God-owned properties across the U.S. that prosecutors say were call centers staffed with unpaid followers. They solicited donations by phone, prosecutors allege, spurred through a combination of physical violence, sleep and food deprivation and the frequent threat of eternal damnation.
At the top stood Taylor, an eccentric, impassioned 53-year-old preacher from Tennessee with a story of how Jesus came to him in a dream at age 17 and turned his life away from “gangs, smoking dope, and shootouts.”He founded the church originally called Joshua Media Ministries International more than 10 years ago. Prosecutors say he berated disciples in hourslong meetings, demanding his “closers” hit impossible quotas or face humiliating “rebukings,” where a superior stood inches from their face, called them wicked and demanded they kneel and repent.
“Taylor and Brannon physically and mentally weakened the workers by subjecting them to daily public humiliation and psychological abuse, imposing excruciating work hours — sometimes more than 20 hours per day — resulting in severe sleep deprivation,” prosecutors say, “housing them in cramped quarters without privacy or adequate bedding, and, in some instances, withholding food and medical care.”
The Tampa mansion, once owned by a member of the family that owns the Buccaneers, would be the most opulent of many luxury items purchased with $50 million the alleged scheme pulled in. Donors, prosecutors say, thought their money was helping to fight human trafficking or to dig wells.
FBI agents on the day of the raid told a Hillsborough County animal control employee they’d removed 54 people from the mansion in Tampa alone.
Those workers, who prosecutors say were pushed into giving up outside jobs and relationships, were at times threatened with being forced to live in a garage or shelter.
“TENT AND GARAGE JUDGMENT STARTING TONIGHT FOR 7 DAYS IF AFTER 7-14 DAYS there is no change it’s the public shelter for 1 solid month,” Brannon allegedly texted a group of workers in 2022.
On the day of the raid, the workers exited the home through a courtyard with a fountain, where seven Mercedes E-Class sedans gleamed in a perfect row. Why the cars were gift-wrapped with giant red bows adorning their roofs remains unclear.
Two chihuahuas that animal control picked up had their medicines transported in a bag that was handy — a cooler from a high-end caviar brand.
Brannon, 55, served as Taylor’s second-in-command and was one of only three paid employees church-wide, prosecutors said. She’d made the Tampa mansion her permanent address, and county records suggest one of her two grown sons lived there, too. Over years of service, prosecutors said, she’d learned to carry out Taylor’s tactics with steely intimidation.
“Media team, no going to sleep until the mosaic video is done!” Brannon allegedly texted workers, relaying Taylor’s orders.
On social media, the church referred to the Avila mansion as the “Tampa Campus” of “IBLU University, a structured school of discipline.” The church’s office building in Houston, meanwhile, was known as the “Campus for the Harvest.”
The church has a sprawling social media presence with dozens of Kingdom of God branded accounts that, daily, churn out generic posts. Only call a 1-877 number or register online, the all-caps fliers promise in golden script, and you’ll find deliverance from nuclear disaster or experience a supernatural encounter via the Virtual Online Miracle Crusade. Church workers’ social media appears to recycle much of the same content, from clips of Taylor preaching about being “rapture ready” to AI-generated videos of Jesus.
Rarely are church workers shown online, and nothing appears personal. Videos posted in 2025 pan over the manicured grounds in Tampa, eerily devoid of people. That makes the single, apparently candid photo shared by a church-affiliated Instagram account just nine days before the raid so striking: A group of about 15 so-called IBLU students stand before the Tampa mansion in matching T-shirts and hats, beaming smiles.
The Michigan-based church expanded to Florida in 2022, selecting two extremely private properties. Eight-foot walls surround the ultra-exclusive Avila neighborhood, named for a medieval Spanish city famous for keeping out invaders. Video cameras capture everyone who enters and exits. No one is welcome without authorization from a resident.
Then church leaders tried to make them even more private, for instance putting up a barrier of hedgelike trees to block a neighbor’s view in Tampa. In Ocala, the church requested to erect an 8-foot security fence, with floodlights and a driveway gate, but the homeowners’ association denied it.
Neighbors in both cities reported seeing very little of whoever spent time inside.
Jonathan and Jennifer Walker, whose home sits on a lot adjacent to the Ocala house, said there was a flurry of activity when the church moved in. A fleet of several blacked-out Suburbans came and went.
“It looked like,” said Jonathan Walker, “a Secret Service motorcade or something.”
But by the time of the raid, neighbors said it seemed like no one was there. The front balcony was falling down, and so was the mailbox. Whenever the president of the homeowners’ association would reach out to his church contact, they’d reassure him that it would soon be repaired. It never was.
In Tampa, neighbor Corey Kluber, a former Major League Baseball pitcher, said things were so quiet he thought the place was abandoned. Jon Gruden, who owns a home across the street, declined to comment, as did a relative of Lou Piniella, the longtime MLB manager who owns the property west of the church’s.
Another neighbor said residents had become aware that the mansion they called “the castle” was owned by a church and had questioned if that squared with Avila rules. They’d seen the same tinted SUVs moving in unison but had never found the church a nuisance.
The home stayed mostly off the radar of local law enforcement. In September 2022, someone called 911 from the Avila mansion and left the line open for several minutes. Hillsborough sheriff’s deputies visited and found no emergency.
That 911 call led to deputies returning a month later for a welfare check, though it’s unclear why. A deputy made contact with a Black male, ran the tag numbers of seven vehicles and left again without much to report.
Taylor’s ministry stresses the importance of dream interpretation for avoiding calamity — Abraham Lincoln’s failure to heed his dreams led to his assassination, the church website says. It also promises that Taylor’s followers can have a literal, face-to-face encounter with Jesus if they read his book, “Face to Face Appearances from Jesus: The Ultimate Intimacy.”
In photos of Taylor’s live events, he stands on stage, his arms filled to capacity with canes and crutches cast aside by attendees whom Taylor says were miraculously healed.
The church fits a pattern among ministries that abuse the “prosperity gospel,” which promises God’s abundance will come through prayer and financial giving, said Warren Smith, president of MinistryWatch. The nonprofit evangelical organization aims to expose dishonest ministries to help Christian donors make better giving decisions.
“They take advantage of vulnerabilities and fears by promising health and wealth, which tends to attract people who are poor and unhealthy,” Smith said. “They manipulate people, making promises they can’t keep, don’t keep.
“And they tend to criticize people who point that out. Any naysayers become targets.”
Kingdom of God has received some of MinistryWatch’s lowest ratings due to red flags such as not releasing financial documents and having no board of directors to be accountable to.
But Kingdom of God’s alleged tactics went beyond anything Smith said he’s seen in the U.S. It’s extremely rare, he said, for a legitimate ministry to solicit donations through an outbound call center, let alone one with aggressive quotas and manipulative techniques.
MinistryWatch, he said, has received complaints from Kingdom of God donors who then received regular calls from “pastors” soliciting more and more.
“I said, ‘What do you mean, pastors’?” Smith said. “They’re telemarketers.”
“You’ll have to raise $164k today,” Taylor allegedly texted an assistant known as his “armor bearer” in 2021. “Each hour you fall behind consequences will start … we will mess with the food.”
The church’s 24-hour miracle prayer line remains active. Operators answer, saying callers have reached David E. Taylor’s executive offices. Those requesting a prayer are asked for a callback number. A Tampa Bay Times reporter asking to speak to someone who could comment on the charges received a call from a “Pastor Victoria” from a Tampa area code who asked if they needed prayers. The reporter asked if the church was taking donations since the arrests.
“That doesn’t stop us from praying for the people,” the woman said. “Do you know how many people we have saved from committing suicide, how many people have been healed from cancer, how many people have cut their legs off and they grew back. They arrested Jesus, you think he cared?”
Asked where she was working from, the woman said the Bible says that if you’re arrested, don’t say anything. Then she hung up.
Taylor has overcome scrutiny before. In a 2019 investigation by the Southgate, Michigan-based News-Herald, protesters called the church a “slave labor cult.” One former member described working around the clock to send 1,000 daily copy-and-paste Facebook messages. In that story, gospel singer Vicki Yohe accused Taylor of sleeping with 40 women during their own 16-month sexual relationship, plying them with designer gifts bought with donor money.
Taylor’s and the church’s social media accounts continue to post without addressing the raids, save for a single sentence appended to a single TikTok video posted this week. In it, a placidly smiling woman stands near a swimming pool and describes herself as a live-in IBLU student.
“This campus for the harvest. I’m telling you, you have to come here,” says the woman, identified only as Kim. “This is a free university. The housing is free. The food is free. I tell you something, you get some good food here. You eat three times a day and more. We have snacks.
“Apostle Taylor, he is a master teacher. He has discipled me and that’s what I’m doing on the phones. I’m loving on people. I’m praying for people. …
“The lies that’s been spread about my spiritual father is very hurtful, because it’s all lies, none of it’s true, and I just, I want people to know the real truth about my spiritual father. He is the most humblest, blessed man.”
