-Caveat Lector-

from:
http://www.aci.net/kalliste/
<A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A>
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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
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Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris

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