NEW BEDFORD, Mass. – A judge on Tuesday refused to release or reduce bail for three members of a religious sect accused of starving the sect leader’s infant son last year.

Calling the baby’s death slow and deliberate, prosecutor David Frank said sect leader Jacques Robidoux, his wife, Karen Robidoux, and his sister Michelle Robidoux Mingo did nothing to help young Samuel as he starved.

“Samuel went from being a happy child to being a pained, weak baby who cried constantly,” he said.

Jacques Robidoux is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Samuel, who died in April 1999 just before his first birthday. Karen Robidoux is charged with second-degree murder, and Mingo is charged as an accessory before the fact to assault and battery on a child.

At Tuesday’s hearing in New Bedford Superior Court, Jacques Robidoux asked to be released with an electronic monitoring device, Karen Robidoux sought a bail reduction, and Mingo asked to be released on personal recognizance.

Insisting their clients had not intended to kill the child, attorneys for the three said they had been following the strict rules of their faith.

Neither parent set out to kill the baby, said Frank O’Boy, attorney for Jacques Robidoux. They believed in Mingo’s “prophesy” that it was God’s will to withhold food from Samuel and put him on a diet of just breast milk and almond milk.

“They had an abiding faith that God would provide,” O’Boy said. “Whether their faith was misplaced or had no basis in reality is a question of negligence or recklessness, but not intent to murder.”

Robert Jubinville, the attorney for Karen Robidoux, said the mother had snuck some food to her son when she could, but because of her strong faith, was prohibited from leaving her husband or interfering with the enforcement of his rules.

“She could disagree but not argue,” Jubinville said.

All three pleaded innocent to the charges in mid-November and have been held on cash bail set by Judge John A. Tierney: $500,000 for Jacques Robidoux, $100,000 for Karen Robidoux and $50,000 for Mingo.

Jacques Robidoux’s father, Roland Robidoux, who founded the sect, and his mother attended Tuesday’s hearing along with sect members David and Rebecca Corneau.

David Corneau, after a promise of immunity for himself and his wife, last month led investigators to a remote spot in Baxter State Park in Maine, where Samuel and Corneau’s own son, Jeremiah, was buried. Authorities believe the Corneau baby died shortly after his birth.

Indictments against the sect members say Mingo’s “prophesy” may have been motivated by jealousy of Samuel’s mother, and the Robidouxs went along with it. Jacques Robidoux was charged with first-degree murder because of the “extreme atrocity and cruelty” of the death, prosecutors said.