Allen Kauffman
Claims to fame: Former chairman (casually known as “Mayor”), Board of Trustees, Collins, Missouri (population: 176); pastor, Temple Lot Church; husband; father; grandfather; convicted sex offender; pathetic groveler
Moral apex: Cybersexed a 13-year-old girl who turned out to be an undercover detective.
Resigned, pled guilty, and, writes Randy Turner, “was given a suspended sentence almost before the process in his case had even started.”
But, wait! There’s more! Kauffman was nabbed in another Internet sting, with his new (alleged) online diddlings recorded over three dates in November and December, 2007.
Sentence: Four years in the can — but not before attempting to “make it all go away” by demanding the nonexistent 13-year-old be called to testify, the reasoning being if there was no 13-year-old, there was no crime of enticement.
A News-Leader article no longer online quoted Diamond Police Chief Keith Brumfield: “At first [Kauffman] did not have any remembrance to what was going on. As soon as some of the screen shots were shown to him, and some of the things he said were shown to him … he said ‘Yea, I made a mistake… How can we make this go away?’ because of his position in town and being a pastor.”
Wrote the detective who played “Cindy” online: “Kauffman asked if there was any way that he could make all this go away because he was a pastor of the Temple Lot Church in Collins, Mayor of Collins, his wife worked at the courthouse in Osceola, and he had children and grandchildren and he did not want the community to hear about it.”
“Please have mercy on me,” a groveling Kauffman is heard to say on a taped phone conversation with the detective. “I’m begging that I can put my life back together and this don’t have to go any farther … There’s no way you can just take the hard drive and not go any farther with it?”
Memorable quote:
“I didn’t ask him to do anything illegal I just asked him for mercy.”— Kauffman to the AP when questioned about
asking Detective Jim Murray to destroy evidence
What’s this “Temple Lot Church” about? It’s a “Restorationist” offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Per Wikipedia:
The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) is a denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement headquartered in Independence, Missouri on what is known as the Temple Lot. Members of the church have been known colloquially as “Hedrickites”, after Granville Hedrick, who was ordained as the church’s first leader in July 1863. Unlike The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Community of Christ, the Temple Lot church rejects the office of prophet or president, being led by its Quorum of Twelve Apostles instead. It equally rejects the doctrines of Baptism for the Dead and Eternal Marriage promulgated by the Utah LDS church, as well as the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. While once avidly engaged in dialogue with other Latter Day Saint factions, the church no longer has any official contact with any other organization. Its most notable claim to fame today rests in its sole ownership of the Temple Lot, which it has held for nearly 150 years. Current membership is about 2400, with members in 11 or 12 countries. …At the time of its commencement in 1863, Hedrick’s retained the name of “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” for his organization, reflecting his insistance that it was a continuation of Joseph Smith’s church. This was soon shortened to “Church of Christ”, however, as this had been the name under which Joseph Smith originally incorporated in 1830. They also wished to distinguish themselves from the church in Utah, members of whom are often referred to by Hedrickites as “Utah Mormons” or “Brighamites”, because they followed Brigham Young to Utah Territory in 1847.
The church currently occupies a property in Independence, Missouri known as the Temple Lot. This grassy, 2-acre plot is considered by Latter Day Saints of nearly all persuasions to be the site designated by Smith for the temple of the New Jerusalem, a sacred city to be built preparatory to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. …
Members of the Temple Lot church believe that [Joseph] Smith was wrong to assume the office of church president, an office they deem to not have been provided for in either the Bible or the Book of Mormon, their two scriptural standards. Although Granville Hedrick was ordained to be president of his church in 1863, he later repudiated this ordination, even referring to Smith as a “fallen prophet”.
Like the LDS church (but unlike the Community of Christ), the Temple Lot church limits its priesthood offices to men only. …
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Kauffman:
There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves.— Job 34:22
Related posts (automatically generated):