Friday, June 22, 2012

Ron Weinland: Making The Churches of God Proud!



Weinerdudes story has hit the Huffington Post.  No longer is this story sitting in the shadows and read by a fringe few with ties to Armstrongism.  This must be a proud moment for all the Churches of God!

Ronald Weinland, Doomsday Prophet, Found Guilty Of Tax Evasion 




Out of the 90% of $4.5 million, the Weinlands alone, spent at least 80% of that money.



The God Discussion blog has an article up about the Weinlands escapades.


Jesus fails to save 'God's Final Witness' from jury's guilty verdict for tax evasion 

One of the jurors remarked,
Out of the 90% of $4.5 million, the Weinlands alone, spent at least 80% of that money. We are talking Lasik eye surgery, Insight cable bills, utility bills, car insurance, global & domestic shopping sprees for clothing, art, & jewelry, homes, on and on….basically everything and then some. In a nutshell these scumbags paid any and all exspenses down to groceries and morning coffee out of these church donations! The so called “church money” equals Ron and families money.
What a brazen piece of garbage. These people are sociopaths. I feel for those of you who were ever entangled with this freak! There is nothing at all Godly about this man. That is putting it lightly.
The jury foreman's opinions were not expressed quite as strongly, but he said that the courtroom experience and verdict was draining, adding that the jury carefully deliberated the evidence. He noted:
I do admit that while none of the witnesses from the church appeared to be violent people, the thought has crossed my mind that if any members of the church were to go off the deep-end, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for them to decide that we are the “enemy” and to seek vengeance, which is why I advised the other jurors to make sure to keep our actual names hidden online and in the media.

Ron Weinland: "...was hand-selecting the “leadership” of the church based on how completely gullible and easily manipulated they were."



Juror 215 has posted another tidbit on Mike's blog.  I am still in amazement at the things that Weinland did.    Corruption is nothing new in the leadership of the Churches of God. It has been going on for so long that most are really good at covering their tracks.  But not so in Weinland's case.  He comes across as an incredibly stupid little man.  Apparently, according to this juror, he surrounded himself will a bunch of bumbling idiots. These morons are the ones preaching to the flock every week too.  How sick is that!

Juror#215 says:
Trial tidbit of the day:

Johnny Harrell – Co-conspirator or Clueless?

I believe that there has been some discussion here regarding Johnny Harrell, Mr Weinland’s ‘Senior Evangelist’ and how much he really knows about the chruch’s scams. Mr Harrell took the stand for the defense, but he really didn’t do anything to help Mr Weinland’s case at all. He came across in his testimony as a bumbling fool. For example…

In an attempt to prove that the Swiss bank account was really church money and not the Weinland’s personal money, Ron and Laura flew Johnny and his wife to Switzerland with them (Mr Harrell testified that he paid for their own expenses for this trip) in order to have Johnny sign a Power of Attorney form there, giving him the rights to the account in the case of the Weinland’s death. I believe that this was in 2004 or 2005. Now, this seems like a plausible defense to establish the $400,000 in the Swiss bank as being church money and not personal, until the prosecution began their cross-examination.

Did Mr Harrell know how much money was in the account? No.

Did Mr Harrell know the account number? No.

Did Mr Harrell REALLY know what the Power of Attorney form was that he had signed? No.

The prosecution had Mr Harrell read some of the content on the PoA form aloud for the court. He stumbled over the words, not seeming to understand the relatively simple legal jargon. The prosecution asked him the meaning of what he had read, and he really didn’t know. Johnny came across as just an especially clueless minion, and it appeared to the jury during our deliberations, that based on the church elders that we had seen in the trial, that Mr Weinland was hand-selecting the “leadership” of the church based on how completely gullible and easily manipulated they were. Mr Weinland needed someone who could access that money in the event of an emergency, but he wanted to make sure that the person he chose had no clue what they were doing.

One particularly telling part of his testimony was when the prosecution was trying to ask him questions about Mrs Weinland, and to give some kind of evidence that she had done SOMETHING in the church, other than being Mr Weinland’s wife, that justified Ron declaring her the Second Witness. Mr Harrell’s response back to the attorney was to turn red in the face, get a wild look in his eye, and start screaming, “READ YOUR BIBLE!” It has apparently never occurred to him that other people in the world might read the bible and come up with an entirely different interpretation of it than what has been forced upon them by Ron all of these years.

It was just sad and pathetic.