Letter submitted to the Editor of the Defiance Crescent-News on November 13, 2017
Dear Editor,
I write to lend my support to the Defiance College football players who have knelt during the playing of the national anthem. I commend them for their courage, knowing that most local residents oppose their actions. Their continued protest has brought calls for discipline, including expulsion from school. I commend college administrators and coaches for not bowing to public pressure to silence protest. These students, along with their counterparts in professional sports, need to be heard. Their protests have nothing to do with respect for the military or flag.
What lies behind their kneeling is inequality, injustice, and racism. While these issues might seem to locals to be the problems of urban areas, the truth is that we denizens of rural Northwest Ohio have our own problems related to these things. I recently participated in a forum discussion on racism in Northwest Ohio. Having lived most of my sixty years of life in this area, I can say with great certainty that we are not immune from charges of racism and injustice. We may hide it better, covering it with white, middle-class Christian respectability, but it exists, nonetheless.
Years ago, my family and I walked into a church towards the end of the adult Sunday school class. Teaching the class was a matronly white woman — a pillar of the church. She was telling the class that her grandson was not getting playing time on the college football team because blacks got all the playing time. She reminded me of a retired white school teacher I knew when I lived in Southeast Ohio. At the time, we had a black foster daughter. I had just started a new church in the area, and we were looking for a house to rent. This school teacher had a house available, so we agreed to rent it. When it came time to pick up the keys, she told us she decided to rent to someone else. We later learned that she said she wasn’t going to have a ni***r living in her house.
These stories are apt reminders of what lies underneath our country respectability. It is time we quit wrapping ourselves in the flag, pretending that racism, inequality, and injustice doesn’t exist. Our flag and anthem represent many things, but for many Americans, they represent oppression and denial of human rights; and it is for these reasons, among others, that players kneel.
The title of this post is a verbatim statement made by a gun-loving, middle-aged white Republican who likely voted for Donald Trump. This man, a member of local law enforcement, recently attended a meeting that I happened to attend as well. Prior to the start of the meeting, several government officials were discussing gun laws and firearm restrictions. One avid Trump supporter happily lent his support to the President Trump’s lie that cities with stringent gun laws — Chicago, in particular — have higher crime rates and firearm-related violence. (Please see Gun Laws, Death and Crime, Is Chicago Proof That Gun Laws Don’t Work?Chicago Toughest on Gun Control? A Claim Shot Full of Holes, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.) The member of law enforcement chimed in with several anecdotal stories about gun violence and firearms laws, and then, uttering the most absurd thing I have ever heard come out of a policeman’s mouth. The man said, “Laws don’t stop people from doing bad things.”
Having business before this government body, I thought it unwise to interject my pinko-commie-socialist-liberal thoughts into the discussion. I thought to myself, just another day in the right-wing nirvana of rural Northwest Ohio. Nothing I could say would change hearts and minds, and saying the wrong thing could have a negative outcome for me business-wise. Later that night, as I sat in my recliner thinking about the day’s events, I found myself becoming angry over what the police officer said. How dare a man who swore an oath to uphold federal, state, and local law, and to serve and protect local citizens say that laws don’t stop people from doing bad things. If this is truly the case, why not repeal all laws and let the man with the fastest draw and the straightest shot determine social order and freedom. Is this police officer so blinded by his support of the gun lobbies’ misinterpretation of the Second Amendment that he cannot see the importance of having laws? Surely, he thinks we should have laws prohibiting murder, rape, robbery, and sexual abuse. I highly doubt this officer is a libertine. Born and raised in this area, this officer has been deeply influenced by the political, religious, and social mores of rural Ohio. Why, then, would he emphatically state that laws don’t stop people from doing bad things?
If asked, I am sure that the officer would limit his statement to the efficacy of gun laws. Why, I ask, limit making laws to firearm regulations? Laws don’t stop some people from murdering, raping, or molesting children. Is this reason, then, to do away with laws that make such behaviors illegal? Of course not. So it is with gun laws. It is certainly true that gun laws don’t keep motivated criminals from securing firearms. That said, limiting access to certain firearms, accessories, and ammunition, would make it harder for criminals to use them, and in doing so, would save lives. Outlawing semi-automatic assault rifles and high-capacity clips, along with having universal background checks and severely restricting handgun ownership would go a long way in putting an end to mass shootings, and would also, in time, reduce criminal gun violence. One front on the battle against drug addiction and opioid-related deaths is regulating/controlling legal drug supplies, and aggressively going after those manufacturing, distributing, and selling drugs illegally. We know that this is the only way to put an end to the opioid crisis, so why, then, do we not use the same approach to gun violence? That current gun laws are often ineffective is agreed by one and all. But the answer is not to say, fuck it, and give up on attempts to craft effective laws that respect gun owner rights while at the same time putting an end to gun violence. If progressive countries such as England, Australia, Spain, and Japan can drastically reduce gun violence through legislative means, surely the United States can do the same. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Japan has a per-hundred-thousand homicide rate of .31, Spain .66, Britain .92, Australia .98, and the United States 4.88. I ask you, in that set of numbers, which one stands out to you?
Laws may not stop people intent on harming others from committing crimes, but imagine, for a moment, a society without laws and enforcers of law. Imagine a world where all disputes are settled by violence, and the people with the most powerful means of violence win. Why, we would be living in a world much like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, or The Walking Dead and Mad Max. It is our laws and their enforcement that give structure and order to our society. Baptists should have the freedom to worship as they wish and not fear being murdered while they pray. Country concert goers should have the freedom to drink beer and sing tunes about women, beer and trucks and not fear being gunned down. All of us should have the freedom to go about our daily lives and not fear being murdered in our homes or at the grocery. The only way to protect our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is to have laws that are enforced for the common good. Until our political leaders stand up to the gun lobby and pass legislation restricting gun purchase, ownership, and use, we should expect continued mass shootings and gun-related crime and violence.
We, the people, have the power to stem the flow of blood in our streets. It remains to be seen if we will do so. Surely, twenty-six dead Baptists is enough to force the issue, right? Surely, the mass shootings and gun violence of the twenty-first century, when taken collectively, will lead to systemic, nationwide change, right? Surely, now is the time to tell the NRA to go fuck itself, right? How many more people must die before we demand Congress and state legislatures send the gun lobby packing and begin to enact comprehensive gun regulation?
Youth pastor Ellis Simmons spent five years in prison for sexually molesting three girls ages seven to ten. Released in 2016, Simmons now faces new sexual abuse charges.
Prosecutors can move forward with the case against a former Duluth youth pastor accused of sexually abusing two girls more than a decade ago, a judge ruled recently.
Ellis William Simmons, 38, is accused of sexually assaulting two victims between approximately 2000 and 2005. He was charged with three felonies in June, shortly after being released from an Illinois prison where he was incarcerated for similar crimes that occurred after he left Duluth.
Sixth Judicial District Judge David Johnson in late October denied a defense motion seeking dismissal of the charges on the basis that they were barred by statute of limitations.
Simmons served as a pastor to the alleged victims and a babysitter for the family of at least one of the girls, according to a criminal complaint. The charging document indicates that one victim reported two incidents that occurred when she was 11 years old; the other reported an incident when she was 14.
Both alleged victims told police that they were sleeping when they awoke to sexual contact from Simmons, according to the charges. The contact allegedly included penetration.
While partial reports were made to law enforcement in the early 2000s, St. Louis County prosecutor Jon Holets said the victims only recently came forward with additional information — including, in one instance, Simmons’ name — that made charges possible.
Under Minnesota law, charges in child sexual abuse cases must be filed within nine years of the offense date or three years of the initial report to law enforcement, whichever comes later.
But Johnson noted in an eight-page order that the time requirements are suspended for any period of time when the defendant is not a resident of the state. The judge said evidence indicates that Simmons moved from Minnesota shortly after the reports were first made.
“The limitation time was tolled on September 12, 2005, leaving a little over four years before the statute of limitations ran out,” Johnson wrote of the oldest charge. “Because … Defendant never returned to Minnesota prior to being extradited from California to St. Louis County in July of 2017, the State has not violated the statute of limitations provision by filing charges.”
Simmons was released from an Illinois prison in December 2016 after serving nearly five years of a seven-year sentence for sexually abusing three girls ranging in age from 7 to 10.
….
In July of this year, I posted the following:
Ellis Simmons, former youth pastor of St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church and Calvary Baptist Church in Duluth, Minnesota, has been charged with “two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.” Simmons previously served five years in prison for sexually abusing other girls.
The Duluth News Tribune reports:
A former youth pastor who recently served five years in Illinois prison for sexually abusing several young girls is now facing similar charges stemming from a stint in Duluth more than a decade ago.
Ellis William Simmons, 38, is accused of assaulting two girls between 1999 and 2005, when he was living and working in Duluth. The girls were 11 and 14 years old at the time of the reported incidents.
Simmons was formally charged last month with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct. If convicted, the most-serious charges each carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
While the incidents were reported to police in the early 2000s, St. Louis County prosecutor Jon Holets said the victims only recently came forward with the alleged perpetrator’s name and other information that made charges possible.
“It still bothered them, and they realized what he had done in Illinois,” Holets said Monday. “It was their desire to continue coming forward (that led to charges).”
Simmons served as a pastor to the alleged victims and a babysitter for the family of at least one of the girls, according to a criminal complaint. The charging document indicates that one victim reported two incidents that occurred when she was 11 years old; the other reported an incident when she was 14.
Both alleged victims told police that they were sleeping when they awoke to sexual contact from Simmons, according to the charges. The contact allegedly included penetration.
Simmons served as a pastor at St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church and Calvary Baptist Church in Duluth, while also attending the College of St. Scholastica and the University of Minnesota Duluth, according to News Tribune articles from the time.
….
The decision by the alleged victims to provide additional information came around the same time Simmons was being released from prison in Illinois.
He was arrested in January 2012 and charged with sexually abusing three girls ranging in age from 7 to 10, according to a report in the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star. Simmons at the time was working at a juvenile detention center; authorities said the abuse was not related to his employment, but the victims were known to him.
Records indicate that Simmons was released from prison in December after serving nearly five years of a seven-year sentence. He was re-arrested in California after a warrant was issued in the Duluth case on June 19.
Simmons made an initial appearance in State District Court in Duluth last week. His bail was set at $300,000, and he remained in the St. Louis County Jail on Monday.
Note: As you will soon see, I was very angry when I wrote this post — the eighth post today dealing with sexual/financial misconduct by clergy and church leaders. Day after day, these kind of stories show up in my email in-box. I often feel dirty, disgusted, and depressed after reading them. Is there no end to the predatory behavior of Christian clergy? That’s a rhetorical question. The answer, of course, is no. What makes these stories worse is the fact they are often covered up, explained away, or coated with Grade A religious bullshit. I started the Black Collar Crime series in March. Since then, I have posted almost 250 stories. These reports are but the tip of the iceberg. Most sexual abuse goes unreported. As we are learning with Hollywood’s sexual harassment/abuse/rape scandal, men (and it is almost always men) with power and authority over children and women can and will use that power to satisfy their perverse desires. What makes Evangelical and Catholic scandals worse is the fact that pastors, priests, and other church leaders are naively viewed as pillars of morality and virtue. People, especially children, implicitly trust clerics and church leaders, and these degenerates take that trust and use it harm their charges.
An elementary teacher at Sioux Center Christian School arrested last month for committing a lascivious act with a student at the school has been charged with an additional 84 counts of sexual abuse involving “numerous” children, police said Wednesday.
Curtis Van Dam, 35, of Sioux Center, was arrested Oct. 23 after a complaint was lodged against him five days earlier for inappropriate conduct with a student.
The latest charges are tied to incidents that occurred over a four-year period, between August 2013 and last month. Van Dam now faces 101 felonies and 39 misdemeanors.
The felonies include 72 counts of second-degree abuse, 12 counts of third-degree sexual abuse, 14 counts of sexual exploitation by a teacher, and three counts of lascivious acts with a child.
The alleged acts took place at various locations, including the private school, the release said.Police Chief Paul Adkins said the investigation is continuing, and additional charges are possible. Adkins declined to identify the number of alleged victims or their ages.
Van Dam, a fifth-grade teacher at the school, was fired following his arrest last month.
Police searched Van Dam’s residence on Oct. 21, two days before his arrest. He is booked into the Sioux County Jail.
Van Dam started teaching at the school after he graduated from Dordt College in 2004.
Sioux Center Christian School was founded in 1905. According to the school’s website, the school has 509 students in grades K-8 for the 2017-18 school year.
In a statement, the school said it removed Van Dam from the school immediately after hearing the initial complaint and terminated him on Oct. 19. The case, the school said, is now “in the hands of our criminal justice system and we trust that justice will be served.
….
Evidently, no one, not even God, knew that Van Dam was preying on school children for FOUR FUCKING YEARS. Josh Bowar, the principal at Sioux Center Christian had this to say to the children abused by Van Dam:
Kids, we want you to know that we consider you brave for telling your parents, the police, and the interviewers what happened to you. We praise God that your testimony has brought to light a dark secret that none of us adults knew was there. Please know that thousands are lifting you before the throne of your Father in heaven…. Trust Him to restore you completely.
Sioux Center Christian is a Reformed institution. These institutions’ philosophy is such that they believe that Van Dam’s heinous behavior was decreed (or permitted) by the sovereign, all-knowing God of John Calvin (and yes, I know all the arguments Calvinists use to escape the logical conclusion of their deterministic theology). A statement put out by Bowar states:
We have been told from the beginning that additional charges for a former teacher at Sioux Center Christian would be coming. Today, Mr. Curt Van Dam, was charged with 101 felonies and 39 misdemeanors. We have been informed that he was arrested this afternoon. On Oct 18, within hours of hearing a complaint, school officials removed Mr. Van Dam from the school and immediately contacted authorities. His employment was terminated on Oct 19 and we have been in full cooperation with civil authorities since. This case is in the hands of our criminal justice system and we trust that justice will be served.
Though the number of charges do not necessarily reflect the number of students, we are grieved again as we hear the extent of the charges. We’ve wept, now it’s time to weep again. We’ve prayed, now we need to continue praying. We’ve brought our anger and fears to the Lord, and now we need to lay those feelings again at His feet. We need to remember that though the charges are many, it also means that many students are no longer carrying secrets. Kids, we want you to know that we consider you brave for telling your parents, the police, and the interviewers what happened to you. We praise God that your testimony has brought to light a dark secret that none of us adults knew was there. You have played an important role in keeping others safe. Please know that thousands are lifting you before the throne of your Father in heaven… trust Him to restore you completely.
Our focus at Sioux Center Christian continues to be the Christ-centered education of our students, while also providing daily support and guidance to students as needed through their teachers and professional counselors. Tonight, there is a parent group session with All Things New Therapy Services. It is at 6:30pm in our gym for parents. Next Wednesday, Nov. 15, we will have a parent/5th – 8th grade student opportunity with Pastor Aaron & Nicole Baart at 6:30pm in our gym.
We are planning additional specialized support for our students in the months ahead and for as long as it takes. If this news especially hurts because you have suffered or are suffering abuse, we encourage you to bring it out of the realm of secrecy, so that it loses its powerful grip on you. We encourage you to talk to a professional Christian counselor.
We know hearing these new charges is incredibly painful and heartbreaking, but we need to be reminded again that we are walking this road of pain, so that another child need not. In the midst of this hurt, we proclaim hope. Hope in our sovereign God, who is so very trustworthy and true in His promises of life and healing. He gave His only Son, who lived as one of us, died on the cross, rose again, and reigns on high, so that we could enjoy eternal life in Christ’s unfolding Kingdom. As a community of people bound together by our love and care for kids, let us persevere through the trials that lay before us. This will be an enduring process but we rest in our Living Hope, Jesus Christ. Let’s continue to pray and encourage one another. We have been overwhelmed by the love and support shown by our entire community and beyond …you have done more for us than words can define. Be assured that God is good and He is at work mightily in this school. Thank you for your continued prayers and support.
Below was not part of our public statement, but we want to share this with those who read the statement. We have all experienced comfort and assurance through Scripture and in songs of faith during this trying time. Here is one Bible verse that has been especially encouraging to us:
“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:6-9
This is, of course, a horrible story. I find it hard to believe that NO ONE had any suspicions about Van Dam’s predatory behavior. Not one person questioned Van Dam’s behavior? Not one child complained? Not one parent wondered if Van Dam’s was up to no good?
Bowar offered the abused children thoughts, prayers, and Christian counseling. The thoughts and prayers are worthless, little more than empty religious platitudes meant to make adults feel better about allowing a sexual predator to run wild at Sioux Christian. And the Christian counseling? This allows the school to keep the matter in-house. Students will be counseled according to Biblical principles, with, I suspect, a healthy dose of Calvinistic thinking. Will these counselors tell the children the truth; that their abuse at the hands of their teacher was all part of God’s plan for their lives; that God was “with” them through every disgusting, vile act perpetrated by Van Dam.
I wonder if anyone will dare to ask the question,WHERE WAS GOD when Van Dam was violating these children? And while you are at it, explain to these precious children why an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing God stood by and watched — doing nothing — while their innocence was ripped away. Shouldn’t God be held accountable for his indifference?
Of course, God didn’t intervene because he couldn’t — he doesn’t exist. Religion might provide a temporary salve to soothe these wounded children, but there is coming a day, perhaps years from now when they are adults, that those abused by Van Dam will have to wrestle with the things done to them by their Christian school teacher. Perhaps then, far away from the empty words of Josh Bowar, they will find healing. I hope they will seek out competent counselors who put them, and not God, first.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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A woman is accusing Roy Moore, the Republican candidate in the Alabama Senate race to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions, of engaging in sexual conduct with her when she was a young teenager, the Washington Post reports. The Post reports that three other women say that “Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older.”
The youngest woman, Leigh Corfman, says she was just 14 years old when Moore, then a 32-year-old assistant district attorney, removed his clothing while alone with her and “touched her over her bra and underpants and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.” The other three women said they were 16 to 18 when Moore asked them on dates. One woman was was working as a Santa’s helper at a mall when she says Moore first approached her.
Two of these women told the Post Moore kissed them.
Moore has denied the allegations, dismissing them as a political attack. The Postinterviewed more than 30 people for the story.
Shortly before the Post‘s bombshell report on Thursday, Breitbart News published a story preempting the allegations, in what appeared to be an attempt to undermine the Post‘s reporting.
In the wake of the Washington Post‘s explosive report alleging Roy Moore’s sexual misconduct with teenagers, Republican senators on Thursday urged Moore to bow out of the Alabama Senate race “if” the claims were true. But amid the backlash, at least two commentators have come out with similar arguments in Moore’s defense: Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler and Breitbart editor Joel Pollak.
“There is nothing to see here,” Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.”
He then cited the age differences between Biblical characters to shore up his defense. “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance,” Ziegler said. “Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”
In the Bible, God is Jesus’ father and Mary is his mother. Joseph, however, was present for Jesus’ birth.
Appearing on MSNBC, Pollak took specific issue with how the story included women who allege Moore initiated relationships with them when they were 16 or 18 years old. “The 16-year-old and 18-year-old have no business in that story, because those are women of legal age of consent at the time the relationship was,” Pollak said.
He stressed that the account of one woman who says Moore sexually assaulted her when she was just 14 is just an allegation.
Barbara Snyder, an accounting clerk at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Onalaska, Wisconsin, was convicted of stealing more than $800,000 from the church, using the money to gamble.
The former accounting clerk at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Onalaska was convicted Friday of two federal charges that accused of her stealing more than $800,000 from church donors and falsifying her tax return.
Barbara Snyder, 59, between January 2006 and December 2015 received weekly church donations and paperwork documenting the amount collected. She was responsible for retaining the paperwork, depositing collections and maintaining accounting records reported annually online to a financial services company with a server based in Ohio.
During her tenure, Snyder misappropriated $832,210 for “the purposes of wagering such funds at nearby casinos,” falsified accounting records and bank deposit slips and covered her misconduct by throwing out paperwork that documented actual church donations, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Madison.
Snyder reported an income of $162,949 on her 2015 tax return, although prosecutors contend her income “was greater than that reported,” the complaint reported.
She pleaded guilty to wire fraud and making false statements on tax returns and agreed to make restitution as part of the agreement.
….
Yesterday, Snyder was sentenced to four years in prison.
A former accounting clerk at a church in Onalaska has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for stealing from her congregation.
Fifty-nine-year-old Barbara Snyder, of West Salem, was accused of stealing more than $800,000 from St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church when she was responsible for depositing church collections and maintaining accounting records between 2006 and 2015. Authorities said she used the money to gamble at casinos.
A teacher at a Christian day school has been charged with 84 separate counts of sexual abuse after allegedly sexually exploiting numerous students, according to a statement Wednesday from the school.
Curtis Van Dam, a 36-year-old fifth-grade teacher in Iowa, sexually abused an unknown number of his students from August 2013 until last month, when he was finally discovered, according to the statement. Some of the crimes allegedly even took place within the Sioux Center Christian School, where Van Dam worked.
“We have been told from the beginning that additional charges for a former teacher at Sioux Center Christian would be coming. Today, Mr. Curt Van Dam, was charged with 101 felonies and 39 misdemeanors,” said the statement by Josh Bowar, a representative of the school.
Bowar then thanked God for shining a light on this horrific situation.
[WHAT A LOAD OF GRADE A BULLSHIT] “Kids, we want you to know that we consider you brave for telling your parents, the police, and the interviewers what happened to you. We praise God that your testimony has brought to light a dark secret that none of us adults knew was there. Please know that thousands are lifting you before the throne of your Father in heaven…. Trust Him to restore you completely,” Bowar wrote. “Our focus at Sioux Center Christian continues to be the Christ-centered education of our students, while also providing daily support and guidance to students as needed through their teachers and professional counselors.”
Cheryl Haan, an administrative assistant at the school, told Newsweek Friday that the exact number of students affected is unknown, but that the number continues to change as more students come forward with their stories.
The school is also offering students and their parents special therapy sessions with a Christian pastor.
…..
Teachers at the school in Iowa said they hope the recent accusations against their teacher will bring the community closer to God.
“In the midst of this hurt, we proclaim hope. Hope in our sovereign God, who is so very trustworthy and true in His promises of life and healing,” said the statement. “He gave His only Son, who lived as one of us, died on the cross, rose again, and reigns on high, so that we could enjoy eternal life in Christ’s unfolding Kingdom.”
Mitchel McCaskell, a pastor (church elder) for The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, has been accused of secretly recording church women using the toilet and showering.
Thomasi McDonald, a reporter for The News&Observer, writes:
Police are trying to determine whether a Wake Forest pastor used his church computer to download photos and videos of female congregation members he’s charged with secretly recording.
Investigators on Monday obtained a search warrant to review the digital files of an Apple laptop computer that belongs to The Summit Church in Durham. The computer was used by Mitchel Rivers McCaskell, 31, who worked at the church until he was fired on Sept. 18, “due to grievous, immoral actions, which involved filming three women who were unaware that their personal privacy had been violated.”
McCaskell’s firing was followed by criminal charges last week, when investigators charged him with two felony counts of peeping using a photographic imaging device. He was taken into custody at the Wake County jail and released the same day after posting a $7,500 bond, a jail spokesman reported.
Investigators have accused McCaskell, the married father of of a toddler daughter, of using his cell phone camera to secretly record two women who visited his home along and a third woman during a mission trip to the Middle East, according to a search warrant made public at the Wake County Clerk of Courts Office.
McCaskell confessed to videotaping the women to members of the church’s leadership staff after one of the alleged victims, who also works at the church, reported an incident that she said happened at McCaskell’s home in late July, according to the search warrant.
McCaskell claimed to have deleted all of the videos, according to a second search warrant application made public Thursday.
The church’s leadership staff first focused on the Apple laptop after the victim on the overseas mission trip told them that she found McCaskell’s phone in a bathroom set up as if to record her. The woman also told the church leaders that McCaskell downloaded his photos from the trip to his Summit Church Google Drive and used the Apple computer to perform the task, according to the search warrant.
The church’s information technology specialist searched through the files of the laptop and reported that he did not find any pornographic material or any evidence related to the secret recording of the three woman. But the IT specialist did notice during his examination of the computer that the device had been linked to several Cloud-based storages, including Google Drive, Apple iCloud and Drop Box, according to the search warrant.
The IT specialist also reported that he looked into the accounts and found “numerous photographs and other digital media” that were easily accessible by McCaskell’s laptop.
The Apple computer was the only one used by McCaskell, said J.M. Hale, a Wake Forest detective.
The Archdiocese of St. Louis has received an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against Father Dennis B. Zacheis. The acts are alleged to have occurred while he was an associate pastor at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Parish in Mehlville from 1975 to 1979. Father Zacheis denies the allegation.
Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, in consultation with the Review Board of the archdiocese, made the allegation known for the sake of openness and transparency.
Father Zacheis retired from ministry without priestly faculties in 2010 due to alleged irregularities in finances for which he was responsible as pastor of St. Anthony in Sullivan. He currently resides in a private residence.
Father Zacheis served as associate pastor at St. Mary Magdalen Parish in south St. Louis from 1979-85, Christ, Prince of Peace in Manchester from 1985-88 and St. Matthias in Lemay from 1988-92. He was pastor of St. Gertrude Parish in Krakow from 1994-2003, St. Alban Roe in Wildwood from 2003-04 and St. Anthony in Sullivan from 2005-09.
As pastor of the parish in Sullivan, Father Zacheis also was known for a large number of new Catholics joining the faith in a town that is largely non-Catholic.
….
In 2010, Tim Townsend, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, wrote:
A lawyer for a Catholic priest said Friday that his client bears no responsibility for a $60,000 shortfall at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church that has divided the Sullivan parish and triggered a reimbursement from the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
John Kilo, a lawyer who represents the Rev. Dennis Zacheis, said the priest “denies any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
A prosecutor, meanwhile, said his decision not to bring criminal charges against the priest follows seven months of investigation in which the archdiocese cooperated fully.
“If I’d had enough evidence to file criminal charges, (the archdiocese) would have been 100 percent on board,” Franklin County prosecutor Robert Parks said. “As far as I am concerned, the investigation is closed.”
That’s not good enough for some parishioners who feel the $60,000 is only a portion of what the church of 300 families lost during Zacheis’ tenure between 2005 and April 2009, when the archdiocese removed him “for reasons of health.”
Those same parishioners question why their former priest had the church pay for a variety of expenses incurred at Lake of the Ozarks, where he owned a waterfront home.
Financial irregularities at the parish led St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson to take the extraordinary step of visiting the parish personally Wednesday to announce that $60,000 would be restored to St. Anthony’s through the archdiocese’s insurance fund and to pray for healing.
Parishioner Tammy Emily said at the meeting, “There were several people up there saying that this money was unaccounted for. No one would say it had been taken.”
Carlson did say that a routine audit of parish finances in 2009 turned up an off-the-books bank account that included $300,000 in disbursements. Nearly $240,000 of the money “came back to help the parish in a variety of ways,” Carlson told parishioners.
Nonparishioners were asked to leave the meeting before parishioners began asking questions, but those who were there said someone asked how the rest of the $240,000 from the off-the-books account came back to benefit the parish.
According to those parishioners, Carlson detailed some of the expenditures, saying $100,000 was used to renovate the parish rectory (a priest’s residence) and another $90,000 was used for updates to the church. The archdiocese’s internal auditor, Mike Duffy, later told the Post-Dispatch that about $100,000 was for rectory improvements, and $70,000 was for heating and cooling for the church.
Walter Korte, a former St. Anthony’s parishioner and friend of Zacheis’, said he was “totally disappointed” in the meeting because of the “personal attacks” on the priest by angry parishioners.
“I went there for a healing service, and I felt like I’d walked into a crucifixion,” Korte said. “Some of us are grateful he’s in our lives. I had no idea what that meeting would turn into.”
Kilo said Zacheis “has many supporters and he’s done a lot of good for the parish. He engaged in capital improvements and helped the parish out financially.”
The archdiocese said Zacheis’ primary residence since leaving St. Anthony’s is Regina Cleri, a home for retired priests on its Shrewsbury campus. Recently, he has been living at Rochester Treatment Center for Clergy and Male Religious in Minnesota. A woman who answered the telephone at the treatment facility Thursday said Zacheis had checked out that morning, and did not know whether he would be returning.
Former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke assigned Zacheis, 63, to St. Anthony’s in 2005 after a stormy 17-month assignment at St. Alban Roe in Wildwood that ended in the priest’s resignation.
The first two years of Zacheis’ tenure at St. Anthony’s were excluded from any criminal investigation because a three-year statute of limitations on theft meant police could investigate only back to early 2007, Parks said.
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Members of the parish also raised questions about church petty cash and a credit card used to pay expenses at Lake of the Ozarks.
“Parishioners have no proof of where their money is going, but I can pretty much guarantee no one donated money for (Zacheis) to go have a good time at the lake,” Emily said.
The archdiocese’s audit details disbursements from a petty-cash checking account and a building-fund checking account, some of which went to payments for Zacheis’ waterfront home at the Lake of the Ozarks, including personal property taxes on his 26-foot PlayCraft tritoon boat.
Other items from the audit include church credit card payments to a variety of retailers and services in Lake Ozark and Osage Beach, Mo., including at the Horny Toad Bar & Grill at the Camden on the Lake resort, just across Workmen Hollow Cove from the priest’s Horseshoe Bend lake house.
The audit lists credit card expenditures from Lake of the Ozarks retailers such as Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Hy-Vee Foods and Sam’s Club; restaurants from McDonald’s to high-end lake spots like the Blue Heron and Bentley’s; and numerous clothing stores such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister and American Eagle Outfitter.
It also lists hundreds of dollars in credit card and bank late fees, overdraft fees and finance charges.
Carlson told St. Anthony’s parishioners Wednesday that the archdiocese had notified civil authorities of financial discrepancies in two other cases recently, neither of which involved Zacheis.
The first involved about $40,000 missing at the Cathedral Basilica. The second involved “improper documentation” of expenditures by an outside vendor working on three construction projects for three different parishes and $95,000 missing, according to Duffy.
Vince Owens, pastor of Household Of Faith Empowerment Temple in Aurora,Colorado, faces a lawsuit that alleges he ran a pyramid scheme that bilked people out of thousands of dollars.
Pastor Vince Owens runs a tiny church in Aurora, but critics say he talked a big game when it came to ViSalus.
A class-action lawsuit calls the company “a failed pyramid scheme” that persuaded people to sell weight-loss shakes, vitamins and energy bars, and preferably to recruit others beneath them to sell the products.
“Nobody wants to buy this stuff that’s in my cabinet,” Caprece Byrd said.
The 51-year-old Aurora woman is one of the plaintiffs suing the founders of ViSalus and her former Pastor Vince Owens. Byrd says Owens convinced her ViSalus would make her easy money, lots of it.
“Six protein bars is $25,” said Byrd, who said looking back, realizes the prices bordered on the ridiculous.
But in 2015 and 2016, Byrd said she and other distributors were promised equity in ViSalus at seminars held in the basement of the Household Of Faith Empowerment Temple owned by Owens.
In seminars across the country the lawsuit states: “Stage-managed ‘get rich like me’ performances enticed innocent, unsophisticated people to buy distributorships, only to learn that the only way to make money from the distributor rights was to recruit others. Almost 400,000 people in the United States, including over 200,000 just in 2012 paid money to become a distributor and participated in a massive operation.”
Byrd said she would pay $1,000 for a startup kit that included shakes, vitamins and other products to be sold to friends, family, neighbors and anyone else she could convince.
Once she bought $25,000 worth of product, she supposedly gained “equity in ViSalus that she was told would lead to a big payday in April.
“My pastor is saying that this is something that he himself purchased the church outright and his home, his children’s home, college funds and I wanted that for my family,” Byrd said.
Like any multilevel marketing firm, Byrd was supposed to recruit distributors beneath her so her brother Bryant Watts was selling ViSalus too.
“I would like a mobile home. I would like to go on on trips. I want to take my family to Disneyland,” said Watts, mentioning all the things he said Owens told him were possible if he sold ViSalus products.
Instead, Watts told the Problem Solvers he ended up losing more than $25,000 in his bid to get “Equity” status with ViSalus.
Renea White said she too was swept into the operation by Owens.
“I believe him,” White said. “I was promised something, a legacy for my kids that I`ll never have.”
White said she also ended up spending more than $25,000 on products she had trouble reselling.
As for the big “equity” payout in April, the three distributors said it turned out to be a hoax.
That was the aha moment that convinced Byrd, Watts and White to joined the class action lawsuit.
“I’m out thousands of dollars. I spent my son’s college tuition,” said Byrd, who admitted she took out a $100,000 home equity loan and gave the money to ViSalus believing the company would pay her a bigger amount back based on her “equity” in a company she was told was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
In late October, Owens was approached outside his church, just minutes before he was to host a ViSalus seminar.
Question: I’d like to ask you if ViSalus is a pyramid scheme?
Owens: I don’t know.
Question: You don’t know if Visalus is a pyramid scheme?
Owens: I don’t know.
Question: Can you tell me, did you misuse religion to recruit people to join ViSsalus?
Owens: How could you do that?
Question: You tell me.
Owens: I don’t know.
Question: The people that are suing you, are they ever going to get their money back?
Owens: I have no idea.
Question: Do you think you deceived people?
Owens: Thank you, (walking away) Thank you.
Question: Vincent what happened to the big payout?
Owens: Have a nice day.
Question: Did you make $600,000 off of ViSalus?
Owens: Have a nice day sir.
In a 2015 YouTube promotion video made with Nick Sarnicola, the founder of ViSalus, Owens bragged he made “over $600,000 in equity with ViSalus so I admire you guys right now. There`s equity on the table right now. Run for it like a man with your hair on fire.”
