Court filings: Southern AZ religious group failed to report sexual abuse

The allegations came in two lawsuits by women who were raised in the group, called the Global Community Communications Alliance, and a report by a court-appointed advisor in a divorce case.

The April 30 lawsuit filed by a woman identified as Jane S. Doe against the leaders of the group alleges "Defendants operated GCCA not as a legitimate religious or communal organization, but as a closed, hierarchical enterprise designed to dominate its members, extract labor and financial benefit, suppress autonomy, and conceal systemic abuse."

That lawsuit is similar to a suit filed in late 2025 by a plaintiff, going by Jane M. Doe, who also was raised in the group and said she also suffered sexual abuse. Group leaders blamed her at one point and told her to "let go of the past," the lawsuit alleges.

In her January report to the court in a divorce case, attorney Lauri Owen said she interviewed multiple sexual assault victims in the community. 

"Every victim who disclosed sexual assault while still living in the GCCA compound said that the counselor told them the sexual assault was their fault," Owen's report says. "They each said that they were told that they had been rebellious in a former life and this assault was foreseen and deserved punishment for that rebellion."

The GCCA rejects the allegations in the lawsuits, saying in a written statement, “Global Community Communications Alliance categorically denies all allegations of abuse, misconduct, and unlawful labor practices. GCCA is a voluntary spiritual community whose members freely choose a committed, communal life in accordance with their beliefs. The organization and its affiliates operate in full compliance with state and federal law and remain committed to their spiritual, charitable, and community service missions."

The GCCA has also filed a motion to dismiss the first lawsuit, arguing that 18 of the 21 counts deal with incidents that occurred so long ago as to be beyond the statute of limitations, or because they failed to state a legal claim. The motion, opposed by the plaintiffs, offers that the three counts related to sexual abuse have only limited applicability.

The group was founded in 1989 by married couple Anthony Delevin, who for a time had been a street preacher in Tucson, and his wife Nancy Emerson Chase, who took on the names Gabriel of Sedona and Niann. They formed the group in Sedona, where it was known as the Aquarian Concepts Community, but then began moving it to a property across the Santa Cruz River from Tumacacori in 2007. That approximately 200-acre property, known as Avalon Organic Gardens and EcoVillage is where the group continues to live. 

They base their beliefs and teachings largely on the Urantia Book, a 2,000-page tome published in 1955, alleged to have been transmitted by celestial beings. It maps the universes, describes God's role in them, tells the history of Earth — called "Urantia" in the book — and retells the story of Jesus. 

Chase and Delevin, who legally changed his name to Van of Urantia in 2024 before dying in August 2025, claimed they received the "mandate of the Bright and Morning Star" in 1989 to bring forth the Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation. Van of Urantia published volumes called "The Cosmic Family" that he said were sequels of the Urantia Book, received from the same celestial sources.

In her January report, court-appointed advisor Owen steered away from judging the GCCA's beliefs. But she concluded, "The Global Community Communications Alliance (“GCCA”) is a closed-campus, high-control religious community."

"The community’s authority structure is strict, hierarchical, high control, and authoritative," Owen wrote. "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."

Her report came out in the divorce of Daniel Steinhardt, who is a member of the GCCA, from his wife Amanda, who has left the group. In the case, which has been transferred from Santa Cruz County to Pima County courts, they are disputing child-rearing arrangements, and Amanda Steinhardt's side has described the community as a poor environment for raising children. 

Although the GCCA is not formally a party to the case, it has at times intervened and had lawyers present. Daniel Steinhardt's side has objected repeatedly to Owen's participation in the case to her final report, which was filed Jan. 5, and which they had sealed weeks later. 

The lawsuits by the two Jane Does, each filed by Tucson attorney Thea Gilbert, have put additional pressure on the group. They describe much the same authoritarian and exploitative dynamics that Owen did, but also give first-person accounts of suffering sexual abuse by three different men or boys and reporting it to the GCCA's leadership. 

"Defendants ignored, minimized, or concealed sexual abuse disclosures," says the first lawsuit, by Jane M. Doe, who lived in the community from age 10 months in 1996 to 2015. "Victims reporting sexual assaults, including children, were directed to (counselor Marayeh) Cunningham or her trainees, who blamed victims and told them their assaults were karmic consequences for their past misbehavior, such as being 'rebellious' or a 'harlot' in a past life."

The GCCA noted in an email that it once turned in a GCCA member who was accused of sexual misconduct with a child. That former member, Danny Gonzalez, pleaded guilty in 2019 to sexual conduct with a minor and was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison. He is not one of the men accused of sexually abusing children in the recent lawsuits.

Children are put in danger of sexual abuse by the communal living arrangements, under which children are sometimes living separately from parents, the lawsuits say. From age 4 to age 19, Jane M. Doe's suit says, she "was placed into group housing, cycled through unrelated adult caretakers, and denied consistent access to her own parents, who still remain members of the group."

The practice of separating children from their parents also played a role in Jane S. Doe's flight from the group that she was born in, her lawsuit says. 

"She fled with her children under the pretense of a medical visit, after learning that GCCA planned to remove her three-year old daughter from her care," the suit says.

While the Steinhardt divorce case is moving toward its conclusion after years of back and forth, the new Jane Doe lawsuits are in their early stages. A GCCA spokesperson, Selendra Calaviero, noted in an email that they remain cases "where no discovery has been completed, where no trial has occurred, and where the defendant has not yet had the opportunity to present its case."