Black Collar Crime Round-Up: January 19, 2011
Metropolitan Paisios Loulourgas of Tyana • “Sergei” and “Yelena” • Gregory Sims
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.
New charges: Michael J. “Mike” Cimmino, 54, religion teacher, St, Thomas More Parish, and “Bear Den Leader” (Cub Scouts), Pack 22, sponsored by the First Congregational Church, Braintree, Massachusetts, originally charged with one count each of kidnapping and assault with intent to rape a child, and eight counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, to which he has pleaded not guilty; with a new charge of indecent sexual assault, allegedly against a second child victim. Story: Conservative Babylon, January 6, 2011; Wicked Local, January 13, 2011; Patriot Ledger, January 13, 2011; BraintreePatch, January 17, 2011
Charged: Lewis Givens, 35, educational assistant, Olympia Brown Elementary School, Caledonia, Wisconsin and minister, Martin Luther King Church of Christ, of “two counts each of sexual assault of a child and sexual assault by school staff,” allegedly committed against a nine-year-old girl in the school’s special needs program. Story: Journal Times, January 14, 2011
Sentenced: Henry M. Humphrey, 72, pastor, Shiloh Baptist Church, Louisville, Kentucky, to two years in prison, and ordered to pay $831,742.56 in restitution, “for conspiring to defraud the United States, soliciting kickbacks of federal funds, committing wire fraud, submitting a false writing to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and conspiring to launder money.” [press release, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky]
In chancery court: Gerry James, pastor, Friendship Baptist Church, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who last fall was ousted from the pulpit by the vote of his congregation (”dissatisfied with James’ personal conduct, including arrests for DUI, marijuana possession and threatening a police officer”), but continues to act as pastor. (Chancery courts, explains the State of Mississippi, “have jurisdiction over disputes in matters involving equity; domestic matters including adoptions, custody disputes and divorces; guardianships; sanity hearings; wills; and challenges to constitutionality of state laws.”) At issue at the moment is a half-completed church building to replace the one that burned down in 2007, and the question of where the $450,000 in insurance money for the new building has gone. Story: WDAM, September 28, 2010; WDAM, October 10, 2010; Charlotte Observer, October 24, 2010; WDAM, January 18, 2011
Accused: Metropolitan Paisios Loulourgas of Tyana, bishop, who in October, 2010, retired (citing “health reasons”) after 40 years as abbott of the Sacred Patriarchal and Stavropegial Orthodox Monastery of St. Irene Chrysovalantou, Astoria, New York, by monastery co-founder Bishop Vikentios of Apameia of sexually abusing Vikentios’s’ 17-year-old brother, among other allegations, including other sexual indiscretions with both males and females, among them a nun. Vikentios first made the charges in December; shortly after, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Archbishop of the Eastern Orthodox Communion) ordered Vikentios to leave the United States. Loulourgas, meanwhile, who is reportedly under investigation by the FBI, had already been called back to Greece to meet with Bartholomew, allegedly leaving behind “$260,000 in cash and 100 gold coins” recovered by a nun and turned over to police. Story: Pokrov.org, undated; Monomakhos, November 23, 2010; Orthodox Beacon, December 24, 2010; Othodox Christian Laity, January 6, 2011
Charged: “Sergei” and “Yelena” a married couple in Voronezh, Russia, with the murder of their 25-year-old daughter, Alexandra (who had “confessed to her parents … that she heard voices in her head”) after attempting to exorcise her of “unclean spirits” by making her drink five litres (more than one U.S. gallon) of “holy water.” “But their daughter was unable to swallow such a vast amount of liquid, so her father, Sergei, held her down while her mother, Yelena, poured the rest of the water into her mouth. They then jumped up and down on her until she died, investigators say. They also say that the parents expected their daughter to be resurrected after the expulsion of the ‘demons.’” The only result was orphaning Alexandra’s two children, a three-year-old and an infant. Story: Rianovosti, January 13, 2011
Sentenced: Gregory Sims, 38, pastor, Crossroads Church, Dade City, Florida, to 30 months, plus restitution, after pleading guilty to embezzling some $813,000 from a union investment fund (Local 915 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) he managed, redirecting some of it to his church, and using much of it “to finance his wife’s day care business and buy rental properties.” Story: Conservative Babylon, September 12, 2010; Tampa Bay Online, January 18, 2011; St. Petersburg Times, January 19, 2011
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