Bert Potter, leader of a now-disbanded Auckland commune and a convicted child sex offender, has died in hospital in Auckland.
Potter, 86, set up the Centrepoint Community near Albany in 1977.
In 1990, victims of child sex abuse at Centrepoint went to the police, and six men and two women were arrested on assault and rape charges.
The following year, Potter was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail on 13 charges of indecent assault against five girls aged between three and 15.
He was released on parole in 1999 and returned to Centrepoint, unrepentant.
However, the community split and he and his followers were forced to leave.
Potter was suffering from Alzheimer's but was living independently until two months ago when he was moved to a rest home.
After a fall on Saturday, he was admitted to Middlemore hospital, where he died at 1am on Sunday.
Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, who was abused at Auckland's Centrepoint commune as a child, says Bert Potter's legacy of abuse continues to affect generations of his victims.
Ms Smuts-Kennedy, who first brought charges against Potter in 1990 along with about 40 other victims, says the fact he remained unrepentant made many of them angry.
"Bert Potter was a very, very clever, manipulative, charismatic psychopath, very powerful. He affected hundreds of lives, and of those lives, many of their children's lives," she says.
Ms Smuts-Kennedy says it's only now, with his death, that she knows he will never abuse another child.
