Authorities say the president of a Montana religious sect was arrested in Wyoming on Thursday for allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl.
Terrill Dalton, 43, called authorities and surrendered near Thermopolis on a warrant out of Salt Lake City charging him with two counts of first degree rape. Dalton, leader of the Holy Ghost of the Church of the Firstborn of the General Assembly of Heaven, is being held at the Hot Springs County jail.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Marshals Service arrested the church's 37-year-old co-leader Geody Harman in Fromberg, Mont., where the sect is now based. He faces a charge of first degree rape and is accused of assaulting the same teen as Dalton.
Charging documents allege Harman had sex with the teen in Utah and that she told investigators another church leader encouraged her to do so because Harman was God. The documents say the girl reported having sex with Harman one time because she believed she would be blessed.
Dalton is accused of having sex with the girl after telling her that if she did so three times she would be blessed.
The church moved to Fromberg from Idaho in September after claiming persecution. Church members initially fled to Idaho after federal agents raided their headquarters in Magna, Utah, in May 2009 to investigate claims of sexual abuse and assassination threats against President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush and the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Thomas S. Monson.
Dalton told the Billings Gazette in March that investigators did not find anything and no one had been charged. He said the allegations were invented by a rival church member who was involved in a child custody dispute with Dalton's wife. They are now divorced.
Dalton says he grew up as a Mormon but received a revelation in 2004 - in which Jesus Christ called him the Holy Ghost - that he should start a new church.
