SANTA FE, N.M. -- The leader of an apocalyptic sect in northeastern New Mexico was arrested Tuesday and charged with felony sex crimes against children.

State police arrested Wayne Bent, 66, on three counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson.

Bent was being held on $500,000 bond at the Union County Detention Center in Clayton, New Mexico and was scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.

According to the affidavit for the arrest warrant, Bent is accused of touching three girls in 2006 and 2007. All of them were under 18 at the time, and one of them was 12.

Bent, who goes by the name of Michael Travesser and claims to be the Messiah, is the leader of The Lord Our Righteousness Church, whose members moved in 2000 to a remote, former ranch near the Colorado line.

The state Children, Youth and Families Department recently had removed two girls and one boy from the site, and said it was interviewing a third girl who had left the compound earlier. Two of the children are 16, and the other is 13.

Those three girls are the same girls cited in the affidavit, according to Olson.

According to the affidavit, one girl told officials she and Travesser had lain naked in July 2006 when Travesser allegedly kissed her and touched his chest to hers. A few days after that, another girl said she had lain naked with Travesser. The two had allegedly kissed as a husband and wife, and then Travesser allegedly kissed her breasts, the affidavit said.

Police also interviewed a 16-year-old boy who told said 10 people had received letters from Travesser and of them, seven were "chosen" to lay naked with Travesser. In the community, he said, people were considered married when they slept together.

A posting on the church's Web site attributed to Bent's grown son, Jeff Bent, said his father was arrested on "false charges."

Bent has acknowledged having sex with followers -- including his daughter-in-law -- and lying naked with virgins. He said the virgins asked for sex, but he refused.

In a posting on the church's Web site, he denied that there was any molestation of children or adults at the community, which Bent's followers call Strong City. A former member of the sect has estimated there are about 50 people on the compound. The three children removed last month are believed to have been the only minors there.

Bent accused the state of kidnapping the children.

"What the state did today was to kidnap a young person who knew exactly what was right for her life," Travesser said on a video shot by the cult and posted on the Internet.

The children removed from the site still have family still there.

A posting attributed to Bent on the church's Web site Monday said:

"Jesus had not committed any crimes, so the authorities had to invent some crimes to crucify him over. It is the same for me also. I have committed no crimes, but many crimes are being imagined and concocted in the minds of men to try and kill me again."

The state launched an investigation into the cult on April 22.

Bent founded the Lord of Our Righteousness Church in 1987 and had predicted the end of the world last Oct. 31.