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Black Collar Crime: Kent Hovind Arrested on Domestic Assault Charges

kent hovind

The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.

Young earth creationist, felon, and owner of Dinosaur Adventure Land, Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind, was arrested last Friday on a domestic assault charge.

AL.com reports:

Kent Hovind, the Alabama evangelist and owner of Conecuh County’s Dinosaur Adventure Land, was arrested last Friday on a domestic violence charge after his wife claimed the pastor bodyslammed her, according to court records filed Thursday.

Hovind, who is known as “Dr. Dino” and has nearly 185,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, allegedly injured his wife, Cindi Lincoln, by bodyslamming her, sending her to the emergency room in late 2020, according to an order of protection Lincoln filed July 19 against Hovind.

“He wants to shut me up,” Lincoln wrote in explaining why she fears the evangelist. “He is dependent upon public opinion for his livelyhood [sic.] …. [I] fear he will kill me to shut me up.”

Lincoln also claimed Hovind sent his “right-hand man” to her rental property to threaten her and that he trashed the property the next day.

Hovind was arrested July 30 on third-degree domestic violence, records showed, and he was released from the Conecuh County Jail after posting $1,000 bond.

On his YouTube channel, Hovind proclaimed his innocence, saying he was “squeaky clean.”

“We’re going to come out squeaky clean,” he said. “There’s nothing to be concerned about.”

Hovind spent nine years in federal prison on financial-related offenses, including structuring bank withdrawals and failing to file tax returns.

Religion News Service reports:

News of the arrest and the request for a protective order was first posted by Robert Baty, a blogger who has been critical of Hovind. 

Hovind has long been a controversial figure.

In 2006, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for tax fraud after failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income and failing to pay taxes on wages for employees at the Creation Science and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Florida. Hovind has claimed that everything he owns belongs to God and that therefore he owes no taxes.

Hovind’s first wife was also sentenced to prison time on tax charges. The couple has since divorced.

Hovind continues to maintain his innocence in the tax fraud case. 

After his release from prison, Hovind moved to Conecuh County, Alabama, where he set up a new Dinosaur Adventure Land, a Christian campground that promotes creationism. The campground’s logo features a brontosaurus looking up at three crosses on a hilltop.

Dinosaur Adventure Land is run by Creation Science Evangelism Ministries Inc., a nonprofit where Hovind serves as president. The charity collected $560,638 in revenue during the fiscal year 2018, according to documents filed with the IRS.

….

In a video posted after his July arrest, Hovind asked supporters to pray God would protect the ministry from outside threats.

“Lord, build a hedge of protection around us as we’re being attacked,” he prayed.

In 2020, Hovind sued the federal government and a number of government officials over his past conviction and the seizure of property belonging to his past ministry in Florida. That lawsuit was recently dismissed. An appeal is planned. 

Hovind attended (and graduated) from the same college I did in the 1970s, Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan.

According to Hemant Mehta, Hovind was sentenced in September 2021 to thirty days in jail for domestic violence. I was unable to find any news sites reporting this story.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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10 Comments

  1. Avatar
    GeoffT

    Kent Hovind is someone I’ve been aware of for a while because of reading this kind of blog, and he’s always struck me as a deeply unpleasant person. When I think about it, this seems very typical in evangelical/fundamentalist leaders: Ken Ham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Kenneth two jets Copeland. And that’s before you get to the Steven Andersons and Greg Lockes of the world! All seem angry, bitter, and desperately unhappy, albeit many have subsidised lifestyles that are off the scale for most of us. I have views on why this might be, and I’m sure that a qualified psychoanalyst would be able to give a very full explanation. I suspect that underlying it is the constant need to have to appear to live up to a public perception that is so divorced from reality. Living a lie in short.

  2. Avatar
    Troy

    Kent Hovind is oblivious to the two facts of life: death and taxes. As a Christian he denies the former, as a loony tax protestor he tried to avoid the latter. I’m not surprised of his thuggery, he and his “clan” intimidated and threatened an innocent man who just happened to have bought some of the Hovind property in the redneck Riviera that was sold at government auction for the stolen taxes. I know his children begged him to stop the tax protesting b.s., they’ve got a good grift, but need to pay the taxes. His first wife spent a year in prison (and only divorced him when he got out because he was still going to be a tax protestor) His obstinance no doubt got him a stiff sentence losing about 10 years of his freedom. What’s curious is that if he had just registered as a church or non-profit and stayed above board with the tax man he could have made about the same amount of money(!)
    I actually don’t think he’ll go back to jail for this. He is no longer on probation and no one will care if he beats up his girlfriend.

  3. Avatar
    theologyarchaeology

    Amazing, I wrote about this at my theoarch website. As for the other topic, All I am going to say is: The reason we know that God preserved his word was to make sure everyone had access to it. Also, God would not be able to judge everyone at the final judgment if no one had access to his word that was spoken and written 2000+ years ago.

    • Avatar
      Bruce Gerencser

      Is this your rational defense of the preservation and inerrancy of the Bible: two sentences; two sentences filled with irrational claims? Surely, you didn’t make us wait for this. 🤬

    • Avatar
      Astreja

      What an utterly pathetic god you worship, DDT – dependent on mortals to get its message out. Rejected as too fucking stupid and obtuse to be deserving of respect, or even the benefit of a doubt.

      Why do you bother worshipping it, by the way? Because you bought into that ludicrous “promise” of eternal life? I predict that at the end of your days you won’t even be sentient enough to be disappointed that you did not, in fact, make it to heaven — You’ll just cheerfully rot in your grave forever and ever, ay-men. 😀

  4. Avatar
    buildabridgeministries

    Well in Kent’s defense, He did sing the old faithful song, I’m about to whoop somebody’s ass…. before he choke slammed her. I guess she just wouldn’t listen. <—- by the way, that’s sarcasm. Kent is a horrible person, and if he was on fire, I might or might not consider pissing on him to put out the flames.

  5. Avatar
    Brian Passmore

    God have mercy on your soul you have left the Open Arms of Jesus to ridicule and work as a Satanist we all will pay for our crimes and perhaps you more than many because of how you reached people with your satanistic approach to the world and May Jesus have mercy on you and how about you inspect your own life and put your own life out there the way that you have tried to dissect other people’s lives dissect your own life and you might see somebody very empty and without a soul because your soul has been captured by The Dark One the demon Satan it seems that Beelzebub owns you now get on your knees and ask for forgiveness I pray you have left God as our God never leaves anyone we leave him dot-dot…… think about that!!!!!!!!!

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