Anonymous
07-15-2002, 05:52 AM
Victims of Church Scam Out of Luck
Greater Ministries International Church ran the $488 million scam.
Sunday, July 14, 2002
The Associated Press
TAMPA -- People who lost money in a $488 million investment scam run by the Greater Ministries International Church can expect to get back only pennies on the dollar, according to a church trustee's report.
In an estate report sent to a federal bankruptcy judge last week, trustee Kevin O'Halloran said Tampa-based Greater Ministries has few assets to help repay thousands of victims -- many of whom lost their homes and life savings.
"The funds available for distribution (are) small in comparison to the amount of claims filed," the report said.
...Greater Ministries ran what church leaders called a scripturally inspired investment program called "Faith Promises." It was a scam that promised believers God would double their money.
Instead, the traveling road show -- which made a hard sell in Mennonite, Amish and Christian fundamentalist communities nationwide -- took in hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, which has vanished.
Some of the money is thought to have been lost in bad investments in Liberian diamond mines or was spent on the church's plan to buy a Caribbean island, arm it and declare it a sovereign nation.
State and federal investigators declared the program a Ponzi scheme -- a fraud in which money from recent investors is used to pay earlier investors and claims of huge profits are lies.
The program spread nationwide during the 1990s. It collapsed in 1998 when a Colorado bank failed with as much as $20 million of the church's cash.
Five church elders, including founder Gerald Payne and his wife, Betty, and Pastor Haywood "Don" Hall, were convicted on federal charges last year.
ex http://www.theledger.com/local/florida/14min.htm
Greater Ministries International Church ran the $488 million scam.
Sunday, July 14, 2002
The Associated Press
TAMPA -- People who lost money in a $488 million investment scam run by the Greater Ministries International Church can expect to get back only pennies on the dollar, according to a church trustee's report.
In an estate report sent to a federal bankruptcy judge last week, trustee Kevin O'Halloran said Tampa-based Greater Ministries has few assets to help repay thousands of victims -- many of whom lost their homes and life savings.
"The funds available for distribution (are) small in comparison to the amount of claims filed," the report said.
...Greater Ministries ran what church leaders called a scripturally inspired investment program called "Faith Promises." It was a scam that promised believers God would double their money.
Instead, the traveling road show -- which made a hard sell in Mennonite, Amish and Christian fundamentalist communities nationwide -- took in hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, which has vanished.
Some of the money is thought to have been lost in bad investments in Liberian diamond mines or was spent on the church's plan to buy a Caribbean island, arm it and declare it a sovereign nation.
State and federal investigators declared the program a Ponzi scheme -- a fraud in which money from recent investors is used to pay earlier investors and claims of huge profits are lies.
The program spread nationwide during the 1990s. It collapsed in 1998 when a Colorado bank failed with as much as $20 million of the church's cash.
Five church elders, including founder Gerald Payne and his wife, Betty, and Pastor Haywood "Don" Hall, were convicted on federal charges last year.
ex http://www.theledger.com/local/florida/14min.htm