There’s more trouble on the horizon for embattled Atlanta megachurch leader Bishop Eddie Long, who is now being sued by former church members for involving them in a Ponzi scheme.
Several former members of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church have filed suit against the pastor for encouraging them to invest money with a company that was later discovered to be running a $3 million capital deficit.
The suit alleges Long had been warned via his assistant that Ephren W. Taylor was not to be trusted nearly 2 weeks before the self-proclaimed “social capitalist” held a series of financial seminars in October 2009 at the Georgia megachurch.
According to the lawsuit, Long did not invest himself, but urged his parishioners to invest with Taylor, who he introduced as his “friend (and) brother” prior to his pitch before the church. Taylor issued a promissory note informing the church members that he was investing their money in real estate, guaranteeing a 20 percent return.
New Birth, Long and Taylor are all named in the suit filed by 12 former church members who say they lost more than $1 million dollars in the alleged Ponzi scheme. “If Bishop Eddie Long hadn’t endorsed this they wouldn’t have invested,” plaintiffs attorney Jason Doss said.
“That was my everything, and that’s it, it’s gone,” plaintiff Lillian Wells told a local news station. According to Wells, she invested $122,000 with Taylor, who claimed to be a self-made millionaire by the time he turned 16.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has a civil case pending against Taylor, who’s alleged to have targeted more than 1,000 investors, mostly church members. He’s accused of diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal expenses to fund his wife’s singing career.
Bishop Eddie Long’s involvement in this alleged money scheme comes after another scandal, in which he settled out of court with several young men who claimed he had sexual relationships with them while they were minor children.
A church spokesman said in a statement that Long “remain(s) hopeful that Ephren Taylor and companies related to him restore the funds that were taken from congregants at New Birth and churches around the county.” He added “We continue to cooperate as the case proceeds.”
As I expressed in the TGIF thread, all things considered, a lot of Black churches give the Catholic church a run for the money (no pun intended). From Black pulpit-pimps fleecing their gullible congregants via the so-called "propserity gospel" to world-class liars, adulterers, addicts, alcoholics and pedophiles.
You name the scandal, it can be found in too many Black churches, among positions of leadership.
Eddie Long is rotten to the core. However, he is but one among a field of Black religious posers who are rotten to the core.