Black Collar Crime Round-Up: January 30, 2011
Jason Allen Roberts • Randy Carl Russell • Kenneth Terrell
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.
Sentenced: Mary Deya, wife of Kenyan “Miracle Babies” televangelist Gilbert Juma Deya (who claims to cure infertility in women through prayer), to three years in prison for stealing a baby from a Kenya hospital in 2005, as well as two counts of “giving false information”; Mrs. Deya claimed she had given birth to a “miracle baby” in a taxi. This is Mrs. Deya’s second such conviction; in 2007, notes KBC, Mrs. Deya, “who was popularly known for giving birth to Miracle babies served two years after she was found guilty of stealing a baby.” Mrs. Deya’s lawyer asked the court for leniency because she “has been a subject of public ridicule concerning the matter in question and the court should put into consideration the fact that she has previously been jailed for a related offense” (a defense which makes no more sense to us than it does to you). Story: KBC, January 28, 2011; Capital FM Kenya, January 28, 2011; The Standard, January 29, 2011. Just last week, Paul Otieno Deya, 32, nephew and adopted son of Gilbert Deya, was convicted of the murder of his three-year-old son. Story: Conservative Babylon, January 23, 2011. Meanwhile, Gilbert Deya is still in the U.K., and still fighting extradition from the U.K. to Kenya, where he is wanted on multiple counts of baby-stealing and trafficking.
Convicted: Samuel Allen Jordan, 55, former pastor, Laddsburgh Church (a.k.a. Laddsburgh Community Church), Towanda, New York, of five counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old boy. Sentencing is scheduled for May 16, 2011; Jordan could receive ten years for each count. This is Jordan’s second conviction; in 1986, he served 11 months in prison for misdemeanor sex crimes committed against another boy. Jordan still faces charges for sex crimes allegedly committed against yet another child, beginning when the boy was nine years old; the alleged victim is now 11. Story: Chicago Tribune, January 28, 2011; WETM, January 28, 2011; Daily Review, January 29, 2011
Sentenced: Kang, 65, former pastor of an unnamed church in Seoul, to nine years in prison for having sex with five underage members of his church, “including a then 11-year-old girl,” as well as taking photos of his victims in compromising positions, and physically assaulting them “when they did not answer his phone calls.” In its ruling, the Seoul High Court declared that Kang assaulted his victims “by coercing them with his religious authority and satisfied his sexual desire while watching the images that he took. He left serious, untreatable scars on the young victims.” Story: Korea Herald, January 23, 2011
Charged: Samuel Peters, 41, pastor, Holy Ghost Deliverance Center, Newbern, Tennessee, & former president, Newbern Lions Club, with stealing $1,175 from the Lions Club checking account, which was earmarked for assisting blind children. Peters’s next court date is February 7, 2011. Story: Dyersburg State Gazette, January 26, 2011; WREG (with video), January 27, 2011
Arrested: Jason Allen Roberts, 36, pastor, Christian Fellowship Church, Dade City, Florida, and charged with lewd and lascivious molestation of a victim between 12 and 16 years old “after he told his wife, other family members and members of his congregation” he had fondled a minor girl in 2006 while she slept. The victim is reportedly a relative of Roberts’s. Story: Tampa Bay Online, January 31, 2011
Arrested: Randy Carl Russell, 52, pastor, Weches United Pentecostal Church, Grapeland, Texas, and charged with a “terroristic threat” after allegedly threatening to kill “someone” among the family of his 17-year-old daughter’s boyfriend. Russell allegedly phoned in the threat to another, unnamed pastor of a church in the town of Silsbee; Russell’s daughter was staying at the other pastor’s home. “At some point,” explains John Nova Lomax, “police got involved, because when Russell showed up at his daughter’s lodgings on Friday, deputies were there to turn him away. And then he came back and drove around the house in a way that was apparently interpreted as menacing, because later that day a warrant for his arrest was signed. On Friday night, cops from Jasper and Houston counties arrested the preacher at his Grapeland home. After a night in jail, Russell was charged with making a terroristic threat, which is a third degree felony in this case.” Story: Hair Balls, January 27, 2011
Denied bond: Kenneth Terrell, 46, former pastor, New Harvest International Ministries (International Pentecostal Holiness Church, Inc.), Bloomingdale, Georgia, who has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of wire fraud related to the embezzlement of some $200,000 from his own church over the course of four years. See our earlier coverage for Terrell’s already-long and sordid history of trouble with the law. Story: Conservative Babylon, January 6, 2011; Savannahnow.com, January 29, 2011; WSAV, January 30, 2011
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