One Tree Hill's Bethany Joy Lenz sent father heartbreaking email after marrying into alleged cult

'Cult victim’ Bethany Joy Lenz shunned her heartbroken dad for six years after marrying into a secretive Christian sect and telling him: ‘The Joy you knew is dead.’

History teacher Robert Lenz, 68, received the crushing message from his actress daughter after she became a devout follower of pastor Mike Galeotti, founder of an obscure church called Wild Branch Ministries.

‘[Galeotti] positioned himself as her spiritual leader and substitute father,’ Lenz’s aunt Diane Terraccino wrote in a 2012 court filing obtained by DailyMail.com.

‘Joy’s dad was sensing this pulling away and tried to talk to her about this situation. He had advised her to “run the other way” – but it was too late. This new family had already pulled Joy in.’

Lenz, 43, who shot to fame playing Haley James Scott in One Tree Hill, released a memoir last week which lays bare her ten-year entanglement with Wild Branch, based out of Battle Ground, Washington.

She claims the group controlled her marriage, career and finances and that, by the time she broke away, she had virtually nothing to show for her nine-seasons on the hit coming-of-age drama.

The CW star’s feud with the Galeottis dates back to 2012 when she divorced the pastor’s eldest son Michael and renounced the church as a misogynistic cult and an unsafe environment for their baby daughter Maria.

Terraccino was one of numerous supporters and former Wild Branch worshippers who submitted declarations to the court backing her niece’s accusations.

She said Lenz did not speak to her brother for the entire duration of the marriage after Robert received an ‘alarming’ email from his daughter on the eve of her December 2005 nuptials.

‘It sounded like it was from a stranger. Among other things, she said that she was no longer the Joy he knew… “that person was dead.” 

‘This was particularly frightening to us … Further, she told him that any further contact with her should be through Michael,’ Terraccino wrote.

Similar patterns of control and coercion were described by nurse Gabriele Stevens, whose four children aged 16 through 22 moved into the sprawling million-dollar mansion shared by Galeotti and his followers – known as the Big House.

‘At first I thought it was wonderful that everyone shared in the community idyll, worshipping together, living together (or very nearby), in many cases working together,’ she said in her declaration.

Over time, however, Stevens’s children began to turn their backs on their ‘bio family’.

They worked poorly paid jobs within the church while Stevens was expected to make frequent donations for splashy projects.

She poured $75,000 into a hotel venture that failed to materialize and was never repaid, she alleged in her declaration.

‘It was notable that many of the members in the community ended up getting married to other members in the community,’ Stevens added.

Dalia Torres, a retired school principal, said her youngest daughter became distant and secretive after linking up with Wild Branch.

‘When she visited us, the visits were short and often she was accompanied by a member of the church group,’ she said. ‘I strongly believe that “Wild Branch” is a cult.’

Galeotti nonetheless had his fair share of admirers in Battle Ground, where he was voted Businessperson of the Year in 2011 and has operated a restaurant, management company and wine bar.

Annette Hunt supplied a statement praising the United States Marine veteran, 62, as an ‘upstanding’ member of the city’s Rotary Club.

The then-division chief of Clark County Fire & Rescue, Michael Ciraulo, said indie rock musician Michael, 40, and his father were ‘honorable and exemplary citizens’.

Prominent Wild Branch members Jeanine Jackson and her physician husband Rick, a country singer and two-time congressional candidate, were among Galeotti’s most vociferous defenders.

'There have been allegations of Mike being overly controlling, and I have even heard the term “cult leader” thrown about by some who used to be a part of the ministry/church that Mike leads,’ Rick Jackson wrote in his declaration.

'This group does not force or coerce, but rather invites each other to love God and each other in ways that have brought dramatic healing (physical and emotional) to many.

'Any who choose to no longer be a part of this community of faith are of course free to do this at any time. My sons were a part of this and now are not.

‘They were never told they must remain part of this ministry. They have received words of love and blessing.’

But leaving the church had taken a much greater toll on siblings Richard and Jonathan Jackson than their father imagined.

Richard, an actor and drummer, described in his own statement how he was ‘excommunicated’ by former friends after leaving Wild Branch over ‘theological differences’.

He said his sibling Jonathan, a five-time Daytime Emmy winner who plays Lucky Spencer in General Hospital, was similarly condemned as ‘evil’ for becoming an Orthodox Christian.

‘I realize the word “cult-like” is a bombshell word but my experiences have led me to believe that at the very least there are similarities to some form of marginalized cult-like behavior within the Big House family,’ Richard wrote in June 2012.

Jonathan Jackson’s actress wife Lisa Vultaggio was even more scathing, writing: ‘Mike sees himself as an “apostle” of sorts; who has been given authority by God to lead his community, without any outside accountability.’

She added: ‘We don’t believe the people in this covenant community are evil people or would physically harm anyone.

‘They are sick people who cannot see the damage that they have inflicted on themselves and others.’

Lenz called upon a cult expert to make her case against the Galeottis during a three-day trial in the summer of 2015.

But it wasn’t enough to convince a judge in Clark County, Washington, that the pastor and his 62-year-old wife Sheila were a threat to their granddaughter, now aged 13.

Judge James Rulli ordered that Maria should live with her mom in Los Angeles but Michael was awarded regular parenting stints and permitted to host his little girl at the Galeotti household.

‘There is no basis to restrict the child’s contact with father’s family or friends. There is no evidence of risk of harm to the child in father’s household,' the judge ruled.

When Michael was deployed in the Air National Guard in 2017 he successfully petitioned the court to allow Sheila to use his allocation of parenting time, despite fresh objections from Lenz.

‘I think it’s very telling that, despite her pre-trial assertions that Maria would suffer emotional and/or psychological detriment if allowed to be around the Galeotti family, she doesn’t say one word about any actual adverse impact on Maria from spending time in the Galeotti family home over the past 2 years,’ Sheila said in a declaration.

Approached for comment on Lenz’s allegations, Mike Galeotti told Dailymail.com: ‘It's not the way it went down.’

Michael said he had no wish to unsettle his daughter by dredging up his divorce, adding: ‘I don't really want to cause any problems for her.’