Allie Dart Properties Update
By Wes White
As a result of my December 28 post about the dispute over the four real estate properties gifted by Allie Dart to four individuals, I received a call last Sabbath from a man I will refer to as “a close friend of two CEM board members.” He asked me to keep his name confidential, so I will honor his request. Let’s call him David. This is not his real name.
David told me that there were two errors in my December 28 post. He pointed out that the title of my post was incorrect in that CEM does not technically have a lawsuit against the estate of Allie Dart. (More about that in a moment.) And he said that, while Skip Martin is very clearly named as the executor of Ron’s will, David had made it clear that (while Ron was alive) Skip stated he was not going to perform that service for the Darts. (More about that in a moment.)
Let’s start with the title of the post which mentions CEM suing the estate of Allie Dart. David is right that this title was incorrect. Let me explain. When I sent the post, I did not include a title. The title was added by the Banned people who wrote the title and genuinely believed it was correct. They wrote the title in good faith and it was an honest mistake. When most people hear the words lawyer or attorney, they usually assume a lawsuit. When the post first came out, I didn’t even notice the title because I was regularly monitoring the Comments section only. After my letter was posted, I didn’t even read the post itself because I was just hitting the “Comments” button. I should have paid closer attention. This was my mistake. For that reason, I apologize to Banned and its readers and to CEM. It was never my intention to mislead.
In the meantime, Banned has corrected the title and I thank them for this.
But I must stress that, other than the title, I stand by what I wrote in the article and I can state with a clear conscience that I had spent much time reviewing the article for accuracy before I submitted it. Again, I acknowledge my error regarding the title.
During my conversation with David, he made two points that I believe need addressing. They are important points! They are as follows:
First, David stated emphatically that the CEM board is NOT the cause of all this endless litigation that’s going on over the estate of Ron and Allie Dart. David placed the blame for this mess squarely on Ron’s family.
Second, David stated emphatically that, if Ron were alive, Ron would NOT be for the existence of RLDEA.
Let’s first deal with who is the cause of the current endless litigation. And this is an important point because everyone knows that Ron taught against taking a brother to court. And I have been told on more than one occasion that the CEM leadership is trying to deflect blame for being the ones who got the ball rolling on all this litigation that is costing all sides tons of money – money that could be better spent on preaching the Gospel and feeding the flock and helping the poor. This fable about CEM not being the initiators of this litigation is being spread throughout the Armstrong movement. It is not true.
So I have created a timeline of events on how all this got started:
During the October 2017 Feast of Tabernacles at Land Between the Lakes, I met with a CEM board member and with a man who later became a CEM board member. In that meeting, I expressed my disappointment that I had just learned about CEM hiring a litigating attorney. Both guys were unapologetic about this turn of events and made it clear that anyone who sits on the CEM board has a “fiduciary responsibility” (their words) to do what’s best for the corporation known as CEM – even if it means suing people who are in the church! In other words, corporate loyalty trumps relationships between brethren.
At that time, Cathy was executing Allie’s will. It was about that time that she had given the property deeds to Phillip Hufton and Dianne McDonnell. It was also during this time that she had given Allie’s gifts (as prescribed in the will) to various friends of Allie’s. Gifts like cars, dishes, cash gifts, dining room furniture, etc.
When CEM found out that Cathy had turned the deeds over to Phillip and Dianne, that’s when they hired an attorney to contact Allie’s estate attorney for the purpose of stopping Cathy from disposing of Allie’s properties. And what was their basis for insisting that Cathy stop disposing of Allie’s properties? They made it clear that this was community property and that Ron’s will provided for an inheritance to CEM. The CEM lawyers were insistent that Ron’s will was going to go into a settlement phase or be probated.
So, Cathy was informed by Allie's estate attorney that CEM had acquired legal representation in late September of 2017. However, as a sidebar, CEM had already begun making demands before the hiring of their attorney was announced. On August 18, 2017, just fivedays after Allie's funeral, Cathy received an email from the CEM board president (Willie Oxendine) requesting a timeline of when all of Allie's properties would be transferred over to CEM. I have seen this letter and was appalled at the board’s callous insensitivity. Again, we had only buried Allie five days prior.
Over the next few months, there was debate between Allie's estate lawyer and the CEM lawyers about whether or not Ron’s will should be probated. By this time, CEM had hired a second legal team. Note that the surviving Dart family members are nowhere in this picture! Also, Cathy's only legal representation at that point was Allie's estate attorney -- not a litigating attorney -- but a mere estate attorney.
By the time January 2018 came around, it was clear that if anything was going to move forward, Ron’s will would indeed need to be probated. Then the question was, “Who would be the executor?” The will that Ron signed clearly said that Skip Martin was to be executor. I remember that, at that time, we were wondering why Skip had not taken the will down to the courthouse to get it into probate. Personally, I had no idea Skip was refusing to execute the will at that time.
When it became clear that Skip was not going to probate the will and that CEM was trying to do a settlement agreement on their own terms, Cathy suggested that Ron’s niece (Jamie) volunteer to be executor. Jamie volunteered and the probate court judge then appointed her as administrator of Ron’s will. If Jamie had not become administrator of Ron’s will, we would still be at a stalemate with nothing moving forward.
Should Ron’s will have been executed? We now know the answer is yes. This is the lawful thing to do. CEM is entitled to an inheritance, whether Allie condoned it or not. It is the law.
The problem in all this comes when CEM tells its supporters that it was Ron’s relatives who started all this legal stuff. Ron’s relatives were not sitting around thinking of ways to get their hands on estate money. They were perfectly content with Allie’s will carrying the day and only got involved in Ron’s will AFTER CEM made it clear that Ron’s will was going to be put into probate one way or another. Yet, I have also been told by another person who is a friend of CEM board members that “one of Ron’s nieces” is the reason a final settlement can’t be reached. This is not true. All of Ron’s relatives ever wanted was to get this thing behind them as quickly as possible. This still want this. Meantime, it is all being held up because CEM is attempting to micro-manage the settlement to their favor and are refusing to negotiate fairly.
Now let’s deal with David’s claim that, if Ron were alive, he would be against the existence of RLDEA.
I asked him directly, “What makes you so sure that Ron would be against the existence of RLDEA. How can you be so adamant?” He replied that he was a friend of Ron’s for twenty years and had spent much time talking to Ron. He said that Ron had told him he wanted everything that he and Allie owned to go to CEM after their deaths. (For the record, shortly after Ron's accident in 2010, Ron and Allie told me they were no longer on speaking terms with David due to bad behavior on his part.)
Here’s where the logic of David falls flat. David is making a judgment based on a snapshot in time of what Ron was thinking at a particular moment. David does not take into consideration that Ron just might have changed his thinking if he were to know the events that would take place after he died. In any attempt to divine Ron’s thinking, we have to ask questions like this: “Would Ron have still wanted all his assets to go to CEM if he knew that his wife was going to be mistreated by the CEM board after his death?”
Now let’s be clear. I cannot say with 100 percent certainty that the CEM board mistreated Allie after Ron’s death. I can only tell you that Allie constantly complained to me (and many others) about the disrespect that she suffered at the hands of the board. I have read emails between her and the board where she recounted things that were said in board meetings that were highly disrespectful. I have read emails from board members to Allie where they made promises to her that they broke shortly after her death. But again, I wasn’t there. And neither was David. So I think most observers should be careful when making a judgment as to whether or not Allie was mistreated by the CEM board.
With that in mind, in the same way that I cannot say that Ron would INDEED approve of RLDEA’s existence, David cannot say that Ron would NOT approve of RLDEA’s existence. We can’t always predict someone’s future behavior because that behavior could be affected by events that happen after their deaths. On one hand, I cannot say, “I knew how much Ron loved Allie and, therefore, I predict that Ron would have done this.” And neither can David say, I knew how much Ron loved CEM and, therefore, I predict that Ron would have done that.”
This line of predictive reasoning doesn’t always work. However, one thing I can state with absolute surety is that Allie Dart definitely wanted RLDEA created before she died. As Ron’s wife, she was convinced that this would have had Ron’s blessing. And that’s all I needed to hear. The widow of Ron Dart requested I set this up for her, so I did. For all who are angry at me for helping her out, come on! She was a widow who had very few people she could rely on. Today, just about all of those who abandoned Ron and Allie after Ron’s accident are now against RLDEA.
Further, when David attempts to divine what Ron would or would not approve of today, isn’t he making the same mistake made by the worshippers of HWA?!? Don’t so many of these groups – in their attempts to claim the mantle of HWA – emphatically state, “If Mr. Armstrong were alive today, he would back what we’re doing and he would be against what all those other groups are doing.” This type of projection is an exercise in futility and it is wrought with pitfalls.
And here’s is the most important point anyway: Our Christian walk should never be, “This is what Mr. XXXXX would do if he were alive.” Instead, our metric should always be to concern ourselves primarily with what the Bible teaches. Isn’t what is Scriptural the most importing thing?
Yes, David and I both absolutely appreciate Ron’s efforts and Ron’s body of work. But Ron was fallible. As much as we loved the man, let’s not deify him. Instead, let’s acknowledge the good work Ron has created and let’s promote it. But let’s always look first to Jesus when trying to determine what should and shouldn’t be done. Let’s not try to be like Saul when he attempted to divine the will of dead Samuel. Saul should have been looking to God for guidance and not to a dead servant of God.
Again, I appreciate the conversation that we are having on Banned regarding this situation. I welcome input and even disagreement from all people. I am not perfect. As I pointed out in the beginning of this post, I make mistakes.
And, civil debate is healthy for us all – in spite of our beliefs on theology or church administration.
For those of us on this forum who claim to be followers of Jesus, we must always remember that Christianity is relational – not corporate. How we treat each other personally is more important than any corporation. With that in mind, I would like to close by recounting that David apologized to me for starting off our conversation with hostility in his voice. After we reasoned together, he told me how his Baptist friends are helping him to learn how to show more love and patience to others. He also apologized to me for abandoning our friendship that we once had. He acknowledged that his anger at me two years ago had nothing to do with anything I had done to him personally. That was a big admission. It is my hope that he will eventually understand that his misplaced anger at me was all over corporate issues. He has much loyalty toward various COG leaders and lets that get in the way of his personal friendships. He also asked if we could go back to being friends. I praise God for David’s kind words and hope that some Christian good can come out of this mess.
