In his public appearances, Todd made a variety of claims about witches, Satanists, and the Illuminati, who he alleged were conspiring against Christians.

He claimed he had been a witch while in the United States Navy, but converted to Christianity while visiting a southern Californian Pentecostal church.

In 1969, Todd joined the United States Army and was stationed in Germany for a few months before being discharged for psychiatric reasons and drug abuse.

[6] However, allegations surfaced that he had been making sexual advances toward young women and teenage girls at the coffeehouse, was incorporating witchcraft teachings into his Bible studies, carrying a .38 caliber handgun into church meetings, and using drugs.

[4] In 1976 Todd became the subject of a criminal investigation over reports that he was involving underage girls in sexual initiation rituals for his coven.

[7] He was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and given a six-month sentence, but served only two months before being released due to epileptic fits.

[2] He also claimed that US President Jimmy Carter was the Antichrist[2] and that Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged was the Illuminati's blueprint for unleashing a planned Satanic takeover.

[13] Todd significantly curtailed his public speaking after 1979, reportedly moving to rural Montana after issuing warnings that the Satanic takeover had begun.

[17] In 2004, Todd was released, but he was put in the care of the Behavioral Disorder Treatment Unit run by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.

[19] Todd also claimed in his testimony to have murdered an officer in Germany and to have escaped prison with the help of the Illuminati, but his records show no such things occurred.

[2][4] While Todd claimed to have left witchcraft in 1972 and converted to fundamentalist Christianity, accounts have him being baptized into a Oneness Pentecostal church in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968, and leading a Wiccan group in Ohio in 1976.

Author Cynthia Burack wrote that Chick often made "excuses for behaviours that were inconsistent with Todd's status as a high-profile Christian convert," and that his "propensities to indulge in conspiracy theory and to lash out at putative allies who question his conclusions" in his defense of Todd and other controversial figures (namely Alberto Rivera and Rebecca Brown) resulted in a split between himself and the conservative Christian movement.