Black Collar Crime Round-Up: December 7, 2010
Simon Antony Jacobs • Vaughn Reeves
Travis Smith • United Church of Canada
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Sued: Jerry Hillenburg, 51, pastor, and Hope Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, by 39-year-old congregant Camille Stephen, who claims Hillenburg assaulted her with “unprivileged touching which amounted to battery” in “a pattern of grabbing, touching and caressing,” including
Sentenced: Colin Howell, 51, of Castlerock, Northern Ireland, Baptist lay preacher, Coleraine Baptist Church; cosmetic dentist who claimed the Jordanian royal family among his clients; and father of ten; to 21 years for murdering his 31-year-old wife of seven years and mother of their four young children, nurse Lesley Clarke Howell, and police constable Trevor Buchanan, the 32-year-old husband of Mr. Howell’s lover of five years, in 1991. At the time of their deaths, it was thought Mrs. Howell and Mr. Buchanan had carried out a suicide pact. In truth, Howell poisoned his wife with carbon monoxide “pumped into the room through a hose” — made with “part of a baby’s feeding bottle” — attached to the exhaust pipe of his car. As Howell held the gas to her face, Lesley cried out for their eldest son, six-year-old Matthew. When Lesley was dead, Howell put her body in the trunk of his car, checked on their sleeping children, then drove to Buchanan’s home, where he poisoned the constable — who had allegedly been drugged with temazepam (a hypnotic prescribed for severe insomnia) crushed into his food — as he slept. Howell told police that Buchanan awoke briefly; the two struggled for a moment before Howell pulled a quilt over Buchanan’s head. Howell then placed the bodies of his wife and Mr. Buchanan in a car in his late father-in-law’s garage. At Howell’s sentencing, “Mr Justice Hart … described the ‘the cold blooded, carefully planned and ruthlessly executed double murder of two people who Howell saw as standing in the way of his adulterous desire to be with” “playschool assistant and devout Christian” Hazel Buchanan Stewart. Howell turned himself in to authorities in January, 2009, because he believed “his sins had caught up with him”; first, he lost son Matthew in an accident, and then he was bilked out of £353,000 in a bogus gold-prospecting scam. Howell is expected to testify against Stewart, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder; her trial is scheduled to begin February 7, 2011. Story: Belfast Telegraph, February 15, 2009; November 25, 2010; November 30, 2010; BBC News, November 29, 2010; December 3, 2010
Guilty: Simon Antony Jacobs, 58, of North Sydney, New South Wales, former youth leader, Church of England Boys Society (Anglican Church), to four charges — one count of buggery and three counts of committing an indecent act — related to his repeatedly raping two 11-year-old boys over a period of two years while serving at two different churches during the 1970s and 1980s. Jacobs “also took nude photographs of both boys,” and is also accused of molesting another two boys, both ten years old. Jacobs told his young victims “the assaults were okay because they were not against God’s word.” “In his Bible studies,” one victim “had read that a man and another man should not have sex together… Jacobs told him that it was permissible as they were not making babies.” He is scheduled for sentencing March 4, 2011. Story: Sydney Morning Herald, December 6, 2010; North Shore Times, December 6, 2010
Sentenced: Vaughn Reeves, 66, former pastor, to 54 years in prison for bilking religious investors in a classic case of “affinity fraud” (”investment frauds,” often Ponzi or pyramid schemes, “that prey upon members of identifiable groups, such as religious or ethnic communities, language minorities, the elderly, or professional groups”). Reeves and his sons, Chip, Chris and Josh, “used their now-defunct company, Alanar, and sales pitches that included prayers and Bible passages to dupe about 11,000 investors into buying bonds worth $120 million secured by mortgages on construction projects at about 150 churches.” Reeves and his sons used the money to finance a lavish style, and to pay off investors up the pyramid. The Indiana Securities Division noted that Alanar literaure included the advice: “Never sell the facts, sell warm stewardship and the Lord.” Story: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 7, 2010
Charged: Travis Smith, 40, pastor, Stover, Missouri, with second-degree child molestation and second-degree statutory rape allegedly committed against a 14-year-old girl who belonged to Smith’s church. A detective said the allegations “reminded him of previous accusations against Smith that were made in 2008. That prompted the detective to review the previous case.” The alleged victim in that case, now 25, “said their relationship began when Smith helped her with past family issues. She told the detective his positive comments turned into sexual ones,” and that she had sex with Smith “in several places, including his church in Stover.” Story: connectmidmissouri.com, September 27, 2010
Sued: United Church of Canada, for $2.1 million by a man who claims the church failed to protect him from a now-deceased minister who, the man alleges, sexually abused him over a period of eight years, beginning in 1973, when he was 11 years old. Robert Duthie, former minister at Victoria Avenue United Church in Chatham (and later Lincoln Avenue United Church in Cambridge), who retired in 2003, was acquitted in 2008 of criminal sexual-abuse charges, and died in May of 2010 at the age of 71. Story: Chatham Daily News, December 1, 2010; The Record, December 4, 2010
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