Months after a police report and eleven weeks before the guru’s arrest, the Church of the International Society of Divine Love deeded its 211-acre Texas ashram into a new trust and a new foundation. The estate today is worth about $25.5 million; all of it is tax-exempt but one commercial tract.
CONFIRMEDThe February 5, 2008 Special Warranty Deed and the current Hays and Los Angeles county parcel records.INFERENCEThe timing reading: title moved into trust as the criminal threat appeared.
On February 5, 2008, the Church of the International Society of Divine Love signed a Special Warranty Deed. It transferred the Texas ashram to the JKP Temple Trust. Hays County recorded the instrument as Document 80013282, Volume 3390, Page 665. The signature landed months after a police report named the church’s guru. It landed before his arrest. The property changed hands in the window between the report and the arrest.
The ashram covers roughly 211 acres. In 2008 the title did not stay whole. The estate was partitioned into two entities. One was the JKP Temple Trust. The other was JKP Foundation Inc. The foundation was not born in the moment. It had been chartered ten weeks earlier. Peter Spiegel was its president, and the temple entity’s director and treasurer, per the Texas incorporation records the Austin American-Statesman reported in 2008; who signed the foundation’s charter is not in the record this site holds. By the time the deed moved the land, the structures set to receive it were already standing.
The signature landed months after the police report and eleven weeks before the arrest.
CONFIRMEDThe February 5, 2008 Special Warranty Deed is Hays County Document 80013282, Volume 3390, Page 665, with its companion deed to JKP Foundation Inc, Document 80013284, Volume 3390, Page 697, both primary land records; the guru named months earlier is Prakashanand Saraswati, and contemporaneous reporting on his arrest lists Peter Spiegel as a director and treasurer of the JKP temple organization.
One property now answered to two names. The split was not even. The JKP Temple Trust took about 153 acres in three parcels, worth about $20.2 million today. JKP Foundation Inc took about 58 acres in seven, worth about $5.3 million, by a second deed the same day. Among the foundation’s seven is the one tract on the ashram that Hays County taxes: the office and warehouse buildings at 275 and 360 Lotus Circle and their road frontage, about $2.6 million of taxable value on land the church deeded out before the arrest. The pattern is plain. The land moved into trust as the guru’s criminal exposure took shape. The partition set a shape the county roll still shows today.
INFERENCEThe three-and-three parcel split is a matter of record on the Hays County appraisal roll for 400 Barsana Road (Hays County property search); reading that partition as a response to the guru’s criminal exposure is a timing inference the county records do not themselves state.
The ashram sits at 400 Barsana Road in Austin. Hays County assesses it as ten parcels. Together they carry about $25.5 million in value. Eight carry $0 in taxable value under the religious exemption. Two, the Lotus Circle commercial buildings and their frontage, are taxed, because the county denied the exemption on space leased to commercial tenants. Three parcels sit under the JKP Temple Trust. Seven sit under JKP Foundation Inc. The record below shows the trust’s three parcels and four of the foundation’s seven, including the one that is taxed.
The taxable line is the tell. The county values the ashram at about $25.5 million. On the temple ground the taxable figure reads $0. The exemption covers eight of the ten parcels, the trust’s and most of the foundation’s alike; the foundation’s commercial buildings at Lotus Circle are the exception, taxed because the county denied the exemption on space leased to outside tenants. The trust and the foundation hold the land, and the roll asks nothing of the temple. Eighteen years on, the split still stands.
CONFIRMEDThe ten parcels, the roughly $25.5 million assessed value, the $0 taxable line on the temple ground, and the taxed Lotus Circle tract are drawn from the Hays County appraisal roll for 400 Barsana Road (Hays County property search); the property is the International Society of Divine Love’s Texas ashram, held by the JKP Temple Trust and JKP Foundation Inc.
The church holds a second temple, and it took shape the same year. Radha Krishna Dham stands at 5530 Donna Avenue in Tarzana. Los Angeles County lists it as AIN 2163-021-032. The parcel carries a religious exemption. The county assesses it near $4.0 million. The sect has held the parcel since 2003. Across two states, both temples sit under religious exemption, and both temple parcels carry nothing on the tax line.
The sequence runs one way. A police report. A deed. An arrest. Afterward, a trust and a foundation held about $25.5 million of Texas ground and a $4.0 million temple in California. On the Hays County roll, the temple ground owes nothing; the foundation’s commercial tract is the one piece that pays.
CONFIRMEDThe Tarzana temple is Radha Krishna Dham at 5530 Donna Avenue, and its AIN 2163-021-032, roughly $4.0 million assessment, religious exemption, and 1947 platting are on the Los Angeles County Assessor roll (LA County Assessor, AIN 2163-021-032).
In fairness. Religious organizations routinely hold real estate through trusts and affiliated foundations, and religious exemptions are lawful and common. The Hays County and Los Angeles County records fix the dates and the named holders. They do not state a motive for the timing.
Sources. Hays County Special Warranty Deeds, Document 80013282, Volume 3390, Page 665, and Document 80013284, Volume 3390, Page 697 (February 5, 2008); Hays Central Appraisal District parcel roster (JKP Temple Trust R12425, R12427, R12435; JKP Foundation Inc R141343, R142832, R142833, R184812, R92478, R129430, R129432); Hays County parcel assessments, 400 Barsana Road, Austin; Los Angeles County Assessor, AIN 2163-021-032, 5530 Donna Avenue, Tarzana; JKP Foundation Inc corporate charter.
Related reports. The purifier and the fugitive’s bond · The Wall Came Down · The Number in Her Bio Is the Sect’s Own · The burial detail · Half of It Goes to India. See also the evidence vault and the map.
The JKP Map is independent reporting and analysis on a matter of public concern. The only criminal conviction referenced anywhere on this site is that of Prakashanand Saraswati; every other person named is presumed to have acted lawfully, and nothing here is a finding of anyone else’s guilt or civil liability. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Reports · The Map · The Vault