Report casts new light on religious community; divorce case led to investigation of group

A fence surrounds the Global Community Communications Alliance compound on Pendleton Road south of Tubac. The worship center is nearby. 

Dan Shearer / Nogales International

A divorce case between a current and former member of a controversial religious group in Santa Cruz County was settled days before it was scheduled to go to trial in August.

Two years of court filings before the agreement was reached disclosed new information about Global Community Communications Alliance while reinforcing what was already known about the group that is the subject of several lawsuits by former members.

An attorney for Amanda Steinhardt said she “escaped” the GCCA compound under the pretense of a medical appointment in July 2024. Three weeks later, her husband, Daniel Steinhardt, filed for divorce. He remains in the community.

Amanda left behind a son, now 14, and a daughter, 12. The couple, married 25 years at the time of the divorce, also have two adult daughters who remain part of GCCA. Both minor children now live with her out of state.

Daniel Steinhardt, who goes by BenDameean in the community, is a broker at Magic Land Realty and Investment in Tubac, an LLC owned by GCCA.

Steinhardt

Daniel Steinhardt in a photo from the Magic Land Realty website.

Several issues — from education to parenting to safety — played out in hundreds of pages of court records.

The primary question before the court was whether GCCA — and the rules, policies and customs governing the high-control group — was a good place to raise children.

Key to the case was a 126-page report prepared by Court-Appointed Advisor Lauri J. Owen, an attorney tasked by the judge to deliver an objective and comprehensive look at all aspects of GCCA.

An April court filing included a heavily redacted version of Owen’s CAA report, which she delivered to the judge in January 2026. The Nogales International has obtained a full, unredacted copy.

Avoiding disclosure

In a pre-trial statement in April, Amanda Steinhardt argued that it was in her children’s best interest that she be given the final say on their healthcare, education, religion and “all other significant decisions” if she and Daniel couldn’t reach an agreement. She also asked that their primary residence be with her.

Most of Amanda’s arguments expressing concerns about the community were supported by Owen’s CAA report, for which Amanda, Daniel, their four children and several current and former community members were interviewed several times.

Owen noted that GCCA did not provide more than half the documents she requested during her investigation and that it engaged in “tactics such as providing password-protected documents but not providing the password, and by redacting all or nearly all of the information contained in some of the small number of documents provided.”

Daniel Steinhardt

Daniel joined GCCA around 1998, and holds a high position in the 100-member community. He is the son of New York billionaire hedge-fund pioneer and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, whose money and influence likely made life inside GCCA easier for his son and grandchildren. 

Billionaire dad

Daniel Steinhardt is the son of billionaire Michael Steinhardt, a hedge-fund pioneer and prominent Jewish philanthropist who co-founded Birthright Israel. 

Journalist Joseph L. Flatley, who has reported on Gabriel of Urantia for a decade, recently obtained documents from Santa Cruz County that show Michael Steinhardt loaned GCCA $8 million to obtain the property south of Tubac in 2007. He later released the liens.

Steinhardt had long been trying to get his son out of the group but was unsuccessful. By the time the property was purchased, Daniel Steinhardt had two children in the community and it appears Michael, in essence, secured access to them through a generous gift. Members have said the Steinhardts had privileges others in the community didn’t enjoy including traveling and leaving the compound at will. 

According to Flatley, “The financial arrangement appears to have helped transform a struggling spiritual community into the sprawling southern Arizona operation that survives to this day.”

Flatley detailed the origins of GCCA and Tony Delevin (later Gabriel of Urantia) in the book “New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family.” See more of Flatley’s work at lennyflatley.substack.com.

GCCA was founded in 1989 by Tony Delevin, who later went by Gabriel or Van of Urantia, and his wife, Nancy Emerson Chase, who goes by Niann (pronounced neon). The group moved from Sedona to its 158-acre compound south of Tubac in 2007. Gabriel died in August 2025.

Owen’s interviews with Daniel indicate he fully supports the hierarchical structure of GCCA, including accepting without question anything top leaders say on any topic.

On a financial affidavit, he described his work schedule as 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and claimed he earned $75 per month because he "donates the remainder to GCCA.”

In her filing, Amanda said Daniel didn’t have a close relationship with their children because his role within GCCA was “all-consuming of his time.”

Several times in the CAA report, Owen questioned Daniel’s truthfulness and accuracy.

For example, Daniel said children and young adults in the community could take online courses and attend online conferences. But Owen’s research indicated members are not permitted to access the internet without supervision and that “classes cost money, which GCCA declines to spend on members.”

Other points:

• Owen spoke to three women who said Daniel had sexually assaulted them when they were children. He was an adult in two of the cases and a teenager in another, she wrote. Two of the women were expected to testify at the divorce trial. Daniel Steinhardt has not been convicted of any sex-related crimes. At least one of the incidents was alleged to have occurred within the community and was handled internally. “(Daniel) completed a 12-step program in which he admitted the abuse to the victim and asked her forgiveness,” according to court records.

• “Sexual abuse in the community is rampant,” the April filing claimed, and other than one incident, authorities are never called and protective action isn’t taken, according to Amanda Steinhardt. She told Owen victims were nearly always blamed for their abuse. After one incident where Amanda said her husband “pushed me across the room with a hand on my face,” a GCCA counselor asked Amanda what she did “to bring it on.”

• Owen had concerns that Daniel wouldn't follow through on any agreement to hold joint custody because he “is so accustomed to having ultimate authority over women that he will not consider, much less solicit, Ms. Steinhardt’s opinion vis-à-vis the children because he does not agree that her preference is equal to his or should be considered.”

Education

• The court filing said the couple’s son was behind by three grade levels when he left GCCA at age 12. He didn’t know multiplication tables or the months of the year. A Santa Cruz County judge ordered the boy be removed from the compound in late 2024 for his own safety. 

• Owen’s investigation indicated children were not given consistent instruction in reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies or science.

• Children were required to work on the property as part of their schooling, often long hours in poor conditions, as early as age 6.

Medical care

According to the CAA report, most ill and injured persons are either told to pray or are “treated” inside the compound.

“Requests to go to a doctor or dentist take weeks to months to be approved, and many are not answered or are denied, no matter how sick the requestor. All members are encouraged to apply for public welfare insurance as GCCA will not pay for any treatment.”

Becoming ill is cast as a consequence of being sinful.

Working for GCCA

GCCA owns several businesses, including many in Tubac and Tucson, and raises animals and crops on its rural acreage.

According to Owen, members are required to work 14 to 18 hours per day, seven days a week and are not paid. Children as young as 6 must work the same number of hours but are permitted to attend “school” for a few hours a few times a week, she wrote. 

On the inside
Amanda brought up several issues already raised in other lawsuits filed against GCCA in the past year.

• She described a “caste system that results in a wide disparity regarding the possessions and privileges that the GCCA leader's inner circle and family are afforded as compared to the common community member.” Owen and others have reported that the leadership lives in luxury with big homes while everybody else lives in virtual poverty in group settings. One former member wrote: “Having seen the luxury that Anthony ‘Gabriel’ Delevin lived in while denying people basic needs made it very difficult for my conscience to remain involved in such an organization.”

• Interviewees told Owen that Gabriel had a private chef, “eats only exotic food and drinks for every meal, and spends over $3,000 each month on coffee alone. They also said that if he does not like a dish, he screams at the server, throws the plate of food across the room, and requires that another meal be immediately prepared for him.”

• Amanda said there is a “complicated and drawn-out process to sometimes even get basic needs met for the children.” She said it took about two months for her children to get new underwear.

• Amanda recounted a practice of “personal and public shaming and punishment that people are subjected to, starting in a member's early teenage years.” She also described "attack therapy" in which "a GCCA member is surrounded by a circle of other GCCA members that spend hours aggressively identifying and shaming the person for his or her faults.”

• The CAA report stated several GCCA members said “they are aware of (Daniel) engaging in verbal, emotional, and physical violence against (son) and (Amanda).”

• Outsiders are referred to as the "Third Dimension" and are described as evil, selfish and untrustworthy.

• From Owen’s report: “(T)he community’s authority structure is strict, hierarchical, high control, and authoritative. Members are not permitted to disobey directives from members of higher status, especially GCCA’s leaders, nor voice opinions that conflict with the view of the community leaders’ or any higher-status GCCA member (and for women, with men’s)."

“Any disobedience is punished, which can include sanctions such as reduction of spiritual level, restricted or loss of access to food or children, additional work assignments or added work hours each day, or even demotion.”

Verified information

Owen included a list of what she called verified facts about the community based on information from former members and other sources. She defines verified as having been corroborated by an objective source, such as a court document, transcript, news story, recording or, for example, a statement found on a GCCA web site written by GCCA leadership.

Among her findings:

• GCCA removes children of all ages from parents, especially mothers, and places them for extended periods with other GCCA members living in other houses. Parents are sometimes allowed to visit the children but may not participate in the children’s lives, such as bathing, feeding, putting them to bed, etc., and are punished if they attempt to spend “too much” time with the children, care about any negative stimuli or circumstances to which their children are subjected, or dictate any aspect of the children’s care.

• Even if the children remain in the same household as the parents, the parents are often not permitted to parent the child; the responsibility is commonly assigned to another adult in the home. Parents who interfere or do not obey face sanctions.

• “Parents are not permitted any input into parenting or discipline of children under age 10,” Owen wrote. Leaders, including Emerson Chase and Stacey “TiyiEnde” Luther-Myszka — both wives of Gabriel — exercise full authority over child-specific domestic matters.

• Perpetrators of physical abuse to children, all of whom appear to be men, face no sanctions, according to Owen. Known events are silenced as soon as possible. Members who put any details in writing are admonished. Children who report the abuse are blamed and sent to “counseling.”

• Linda Cunningham provides what is termed “counseling” to GCCA members. In reality, she uses sessions to obtain sensitive personal information about the “client," Owen wrote. Cunningham relays that information to the GCCA leadership then weaponizes that information to motivate “clients” to conform and submit to leadership’s wishes, Owen wrote. (In a lawsuit filed this year by a former member, Cunningham — known as Marayeh in the community — directed “unlicensed counseling practices, extracted confidential information from members, and participated in concealing child abuse.”

• If two GCCA members form a bond, GCCA terms it dio-coupling and characterizes it as conspiratorial against leadership. Offenders are separated and sent to counseling.

• If someone continues to disagree with GCCA leadership, they are termed "cosmically insane."

• Gabriel of Urantia told people that even if his son, Amadon, seems to be wrong, he is not, because Amadon is spiritually “above” others. If a GCCA member disagrees with anything said by Emerson Chase or Gabriel, even if the statement is verifiably inaccurate, they are told they are “making excuses,” or “being defensive.” Amadon was the heir apparent when Gabriel died last year but it’s unclear who is calling the shots in the community today.

• GCCA leadership deliberately misled Arizona Department of Child Safety employees who were investigating a report of whether a child-member was being neglected and/or abused at GCCA. Owen said members set up a living situation designed to mislead DCS staff into thinking the child lived with her parents when she did not, and that her parents were caring for her when they were not. Prior to the DCS visit, a GCCA leadership member also force-fed the child for days in an attempt to increase her weight, as the child had become significantly underweight due to GCCA’s knowing nutritional neglect to this child and other children. GCCA also ignored the fact that the child, who was barely school aged, was being sexually abused by a boy 10 years older, according to Owen.

Father’s response

Daniel attempted to have Owen’s CAA report sealed, arguing it would disparage GCCA, leading to potential harm against members.

Amanda’s attorneys pointed out his objection was made to protect the organization and not his own children. They argued that the public “should be allowed to know of abuse or allegations of abuse within the community.”

“It is telling that (Daniel) does not want the public to know about what happens on the GCCA compound,” they wrote.

A judge denied the request to seal.

Case closed

The Steinhardts reached a settlement before the Aug. 24 divorce trial. The dissolution was final Aug. 12, with Amanda getting final decision-making authority and providing the primary residence for both minor children.

Had the case gone to trial, a tentative witness list included members and former members. 

According to school officials and others, Amanda's son is making big strides academically, has friends, is well-behaved and has adjusted well in their home outside of Arizona. He has no desire to ever set foot on the GCCA campus again and the parenting plan and counselors support that wish.

Amanda’s 12-year-old daughter also lives with her, making the move around the time of the divorce.