From Joe. My. God.: This Week In Holy Crimes

Sunday, June 14, 2009

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Tennessee: Pastor Shane West convicted of prescription drug fraud.
Kentucky: Pastor Daniel Gabbard charged with wanton murder in fatal DUI crash.
North Carolina: Rev. John Schneider charged with obstructing justice for purging child pornography from the home computer of his church's music minster.

Ontario: Rev. William Major sentenced to two years in prison for sexual assault.
Florida: Pastor Darrell Gilyard sentenced to three years in prison for lewd molestation.
North Carolina: Pastor John David Maisenhelder charged with molesting three children.
Ottawa: Man sues Ottawa Archdiocese for $2M for molestation that occurred over 25 years ago.
Texas: Pastor Matthew Anderson sentenced to five consecutive life sentences for child molestation. Anderson used passages from the Bible to convince his prey that he and they should get closer.

This week's winner:
California: Father and son con artists Pastor Richard Cunningham and Pastor Jonathan Cunningham were convicted of stealing over $1M from the Yorba Linda Baptist Church and transferring it into their private accounts. The pair had originally stolen $3,669,376 but paid back part of that theft by deeding property over to the church - property that they had likely purchased with stolen church money, but that had greatly increased in value over the years. "The Cunninghams, who each earned less than $100,000 a year on the books, between them owned six homes, two timeshares and cars that included a Cadillac and a Mercedes-Benz."