-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- The Religion Business Rev. Henry Lyons Found Guilty of Racketeering, Grand Theft Those burning waterfront homes LARGO, Fla. — The head of one of the nation's most influential black denominations, who prosecutors said "traded the Good Book for the bank book," was found guilty Saturday on charges of swindling millions of dollars from companies seeking to do business with his followers. The Rev. Henry Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, also was found guilty of grand theft in the disappearance of almost $250,000 from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, money intended to rebuild burned black churches in the South. The six-member jury acquitted Lyons' co-defendant and alleged mistress, Bernice Edwards, on the racketeering charge, the only count she faced. Lyons, flanked by his attorneys, showed no reaction as the judge read the verdicts. He faces three to seven years in prison. Edwards sobbed and put her head on her lawyer's shoulder after the verdict. Prosecutors accused the pair of stealing more than $4 million from corporations wanting to sell cemetery products, life insurance policies and credit cards to the convention's touted 8.5 million black members. Prosecutors have called the membership figure a hoax and said the convention could have had closer to 1 million members. They said Lyons and Ms. Edwards duped the companies by promising a membership mailing list that never existed — at one point, according to testimony, even making up lists from $90 computerized phone disks that led one company to send letters to such non-Baptists as a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and a Catholic priest. The pair then went on lavish spending sprees, buying a diamond ring "the size of a dime," a $700,000 waterfront home, a time-share condominium in Nevada, several luxury cars and expensive clothing, according to testimony during the five-week trial. The trial came to a standstill Saturday morning when two Tampa Bay television stations turned over copies of e-mails they had received from a man who claimed he overheard a female juror discussing the case with a friend. Lyons' attorney immediately asked for a mistrial. The judge denied the request after the juror denied the conversation. In a second e-mail, the same man wrote that he did not overhear the conversation directly. Prosecutors began investigating Lyons' finances in July 1997, after his wife set fire to the waterfront home. She told deputies she found the deed in her husband's briefcase and believed he and Ms. Edwards were having an affair. Deborah Lyons, later convicted of arson and sentenced to probation, since has said she supports her husband and does not believe Ms. Edwards was his mistress. Ms. Edwards, a convicted embezzler from Milwaukee, took the witness stand to deny having a sexual affair with the minister and asserted she earned every dime she spent by working as the convention's public relations director. However, convention aide Bonita Henderson testified she did have an affair with Lyons and told jurors that Ms. Edwards bragged of having a sexual relationship with him, even telling convention pastors the pair would marry "as soon as he got rid of his drunken wife." Ms. Henderson described making up a membership list for the Globe Life Insurance Co. at Lyons' direction, using a computerized telephone directory and eliminating names ending with "-ski" or clearly of other ethnic groups. The company paid Lyons $400,000 for that list, executives testified, then realized they had been duped when they received complaints from a grand dragon for the Ku Klux Klan, a Catholic priest and a member of their own board of directors who each received sales letters with Lyons' endorsement. The company later paid Lyons another $600,000 when he claimed the list had been sabotaged and he could get them another. The biggest victim, prosecutors said, was the world's second-largest funeral home company, the Loewen Group, which was cheated out of almost $3 million. "Somewhere along the line, he traded the Good Book for the bank book. That's what this case is all about," Assistant State Attorney Bill Loughery told the jury in closing arguments Thursday. "It's beyond hypocrisy and it's actually criminal." Defense lawyers attacked prosecutors as acting as "the moral police," saying the minister's failed business deals were not criminal matters and the case actually is about religious freedom. The convention has kept Lyons as its leader, saying he stole no funds from them and committed no wrongdoing, attorney Grady Irvin said. "They don't like it," he said, pointing at prosecutors. "The next thing you know, are they going to be writing the sermons? Telling us when to pray? When to kneel? When to stand up? This is a religious organization. ... It's not up to these prosecutors ... to tell them how to run their organization." Lyons still faces a federal trial in April on 54 counts which include tax evasion, money laundering and extortion. Associated Press, Feb. 27, 1999 The Adventures of Rapeman Clinton Is Accused of Sexual Assault When at Oxford So what? Who cares? Rape is good. FRESH allegations of sexual assaults by the young Bill Clinton have emerged in the wake of last week's televised claim by Juanita Broaddrick that he raped her in her hotel bedroom in 1978. At least two more women, one of them English, may have been his victims on earlier occasions, according to an Internet website that claims to have spoken to both in the past few days. The new charges, which have not been independently confirmed, are signals that the controversy over President Clinton's sexual conduct is far from over. Ms Broaddrick's sometimes tearful account of Mr Clinton's alleged assault was watched in 23 million American homes and had a profound effect on many who saw it. According to an opinion poll, published by Fox News yesterday, 54 per cent of Americans believe Ms Broaddrick's version of events - which is denied by the President's lawyers - and half say her claim represents a "pattern of behaviour" by Mr Clinton. Some believe that Ms Broaddrick's interview may encourage other women to come forward. Lucianne Goldberg, the literary agent who encouraged Linda Tripp to record her telephone conversations with Miss Lewinsky, has been hinting to friends that she has someone lined up to go public within a month. Capitol Hill Blue, a conservative-leaning website, claims that a 19-year-old Englishwoman complained of being sexually assaulted by Mr Clinton at a pub near Oxford in 1969, when he was a Rhodes Scholar. It claims to have confirmation from a former State Department official. The alleged victim's family is said to have decided against pursuing the case. According to Capitol Hill Blue, the woman - who it says is now married and lives near London - confirmed that there had been an incident when contacted last week but refused to go public. It said she had since changed her telephone number. The same website also claims to have spoken to an unnamed woman who was sexually assaulted by Mr Clinton, then a Yale law student, in 1972. She was 22 at the time. According to the report, the woman confirmed the incident but declined to discuss it further. The Internet magazine said the incident was also confirmed by a retired campus policeman. The website, run from suburban Virginia, is regarded by Washington insiders as significantly less reliable than rivals such as the Drudge Report, which was the first to reveal that the President had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky but which itself has not always proved correct. Capitol Hill Blue's slogan, "Because nobody's life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session", suggests that its political leanings are well to the Right, qualifying it as part of what Clinton defenders regard as a "vast Right-wing conspiracy". Its report admits that a request for any records of the Oxford incident, filed under freedom of information legislation, failed to turn up anything. The allegations are being made amid signs that women's organisations, whose support for Mr Clinton has been vital to his survival, are beginning to desert him. Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organisation for Women, said: "The story was devastating because she doesn't have an apparent political motivation and she doesn't seem to be in it for the money." She urged people to treat Ms Broaddrick "fairly and respectfully" and, in a devastating sideswipe at the White House, called on Mr Clinton "to denounce this 'nuts or sluts' defence, the argument that she either made it up or asked for it". Miss Ireland's intervention marks a significant shift in the position of one of America's most influential feminist groups, which earlier staunchly opposed impeachment. Republicans are calling on so-called "ethical Democrats" - senators such as Joseph Lieberman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan who took a moral stance on the President's behaviour after he admitted his affair with Miss Lewinsky - to confront Mr Clinton on Ms Broaddrick's allegations. How likely they are to do so is another matter. Senator Lieberman did not even watch the NBC broadcast - "it was his birthday", said a spokesman. Another Democrat said: "People are disturbed by the possibility that the President behaved like that. But will anyone who matters press him on it? They didn't do so before and I would be very surprised if they do so now." The London Telegraph, Feb. 27, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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