Friend says Church of God member wrongly indicted
By Dixon Cartwright
Journal writer Mac Overton contributed to this article.
Some
of Don Tiger’s former associates in some Church of God groups act as if
he is guilty of heinous crimes and have hung him up to dry. So says
Mr. Tiger’s close friend Greg Walburn of Pasadena, Calif. Mr. Tiger, a
certified public accountant and information-technology professional who
lives in Wadsworth, Ohio, was indicted in June for failing to answer a
summons to a federal court. Articles have appeared about him in Ohio
newspapers and on Church of God Internet forums that assume his guilt on
various counts, Mr. Walburn said.
Yet
Mr. Tiger’s only crime, said his friend, has been “trying to help
Church of God groups” by compiling historic Worldwide Church of God
literature, especially the writings of WCG founder Herbert W.
Armstrong. Mr. Tiger, a former WCG member and later an employee of the
Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), based in Edmond, Okla., and the
Restored Church of God (RCG), based in Wadsworth, was indicted in June
on a charge of forgery for opening a bank account in Ohio under an
assumed name.
From a disagreement
News
reports have said Mr. Tiger was also indicted on a charge of
embezzlement. Yet that charge is “ludicrous,” said Mr. Walburn, and
stems from a disagreement between Mr. Tiger and RCG founder Dave Pack,
also of Wadsworth. “The investigations have found no proof of Dave
Pack’s embezzlement charges,” said Mr. Walburn. “As it stands now, he
has not been charged with anything from David Pack’s complaint and
probably will not be.” Mr. Walburn said Mr. Pack accused Mr. Tiger of
embezzling funds after Mr. Tiger, as church accountant, paid himself his
last month’s salary immediately before Mr. Pack fired him.
Mr.
Tiger and Mr. Pack had had “major disagreements” that had nothing to do
with Mr. Tiger’s legal troubles, said Mr. Walburn. “Don could see the
handwriting on the wall, that Dave was going to terminate him. Don had
authorization to pay himself his salary and did so before he left the
employ of the RCG.
“Before
Pack fired him, he resigned. But just before he resigned he paid
himself for the time he worked less one day, using a check at the back
of the church’s checkbook, because Don had firsthand experience with Mr.
Pack not paying people the money he owed them after he fired them. He
did not tell Dave Pack he was going to pay his salary that day because
he knew Dave Pack would have stopped payment on the check.”
Subsequently,
said Mr. Walburn, “the Wadsworth police took all of Don’s CD files, all
he had worked on for 10 years. It will be interesting if Dave Pack gets
all the CD stuff; that may be one of the things that Pack wants to
achieve in all of this: control over the HWA writings that Don has
worked so hard on.”
Local
officials, said Mr. Walburn, have not filed any charge of embezzlement
“because they realize, even the detective realizes now, based upon the
evidence, that Dave Pack is a liar. They found no evidence of wrongdoing
on Don’s part whatsoever.”
Yet
Mr. Tiger still faces charges of failure to appear in federal court and
forgery in a local court. The federal proceedings are working their way
through the system in Detroit, Mich.
Newspaper account
According
to a July 14 article in The Medina (Ohio) Gazette, 40-year-old Donald
H. Tiger “funneled an undisclosed amount of church funds into phony
businesses naming him, or his aliases, as the proprietor.” According to
the article, Mr. Tiger was investigated after the Restored Church of
God, founded and administered by elder Dave Pack, discovered checks
missing from the back of the church’s checkbook.
Police
arrested Mr. Tiger June 21 and held him on $100,000 bond until July 3,
when his bond was lowered to a $10,000 cash bond and he was released.
Police, the newspaper said, executed a search warrant at Mr. Tiger’s
home and at three “storage units.”
“Checks,
documents and wallets containing bogus driver’s licenses were seized
and, police said, show Donald Tiger is also Richard C. Russell, Gregory
H. Walburn and Walter J. Noble,” said newspaper writer Jennifer Fiala.
Mr.
Tiger told The Journal in late July that his attorney had advised him
not to discuss the case. He said he had legitimate business reasons and
permission to use the aliases, all of which represent real people,
friends of Mr. Tiger.
Mr.
Walburn, whose name appeared in the newspaper article as one of Mr.
Tiger’s aliases, told The Journal Mr. Tiger is one of his best friends.
“I did not worry at all about Mr. Tiger using my name to conduct
business under,” he said. “I knew he was not out to defraud anyone.”
Began while PCG member
Mr.
Walburn said the RCG took action against his friend because the church
wanted to assume control of a master set of compact discs containing
archives of the work of Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Tiger began work on the
series of CDs while a member of the PCG. Later he broke with the PCG and
affiliated with an independent PCG split, The Church of God of Neosho,
Wis., and Uvalde, Texas. After Mr. Pack formed the RCG, Mr. Pack
“recruited” him because of the CDs, Mr. Tiger said.
The
charge of forgery, said Mr. Walburn, stemmed from “false driver’s
licenses” issued in Illinois. It comes down to one thing, and that is a
bank account under a dba [’doing business as’ an assumed name] that he
opened. The question now is was there fraud committed.”
Mr.
Walburn admits that Mr. Tiger should not have taken out false driver’s
licenses in any state. Yet the municipal-court jurisdiction in Ohio is
not properly concerned with Illinois driver’s licenses, he said.
“Even
though it was not a wise thing to do, he has done nothing illegal with
the driver’s licenses,” said Mr. Walburn. “There was no fraud, and the
courts will show this once this goes to trial. There is nothing illegal
in Ohio about using a dba or aliases if there is no intent to defraud.”
The legal process “just has to take its course now,” he said. “Don
Tiger, even though he was using these other names, was using them by
permission and for legal reasons.”
If there were no intent to defraud, why was Mr. Tiger pretending to be other people?
Invalid subpoena
“Because
of the federal case,” replied Mr. Walburn. “This judge in Detroit and
the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] have illegally gotten after him. “The
judge was out for blood. Don sent him a letter basically stating that,
since the subpoena was invalid, he was not going to show up in court.
That outraged the Detroit judge. In fact, the federal judge threw in
jail for a day the person who delivered Mr. Tiger’s letter of refusal to
appear. That shows you how out of control this judge is.
“Yet,
according to a federal judge in Ohio, the subpoena was invalid and
should be voided. However, the judge in Ohio told Mr. Tiger that the
only person who can void the subpoena is the issuing judge. That is why
we still have this case in Detroit.”
Wouldn’t
it have been smart on Mr. Tiger’s part to humor the judge, even if the
judge were in the wrong? “Yes,” said Mr. Walburn. “I told him at the
time to humor him. “But Don thought in all good conscience that the
judge was out to get the Philadelphia Church of God by bringing some
trumped-up charge against that church for giving out ministerial credit
on no basis, which was not the case.”
The
PCG had the right to sanction giving a tax break to an elder or, in
this case, a ministerial trainee, said Mr. Walburn. “Don thought the
court’s action in that case was just another persecution of another
Church of God. Since the subpoena was flawed, he had no legal reason to
show up. In fact, that’s why the case will ultimately fall apart.
“You’ve
got to understand that these federal judges are like gods in their
little kingdoms. It gets down to how good of an attorney you’ve got if
you are going to prevail over a federal judge. They have enormous power
not given to them by the people.”
The
Detroit judge, said Mr. Walburn, sicced the IRS on Mr. Tiger. So Mr.
Tiger realized that all his personal belongings--“everything he had
worked for”--were at risk. “So Don took upon himself the aliases to do
some business to protect himself and his family from illegal prosecution
by the federal government. He wasn’t hiding out. He was just protecting
himself and his assets from the federal government, which was giving
itself carte blanche to take away everything he owns.”
Back to 1996
Mr.
Tiger’s troubles, said Mr. Walburn, go back to 1996, about two years
after he had left the job as treasurer of the PCG in Oklahoma. (He had
earlier resigned his position as an information-technology professional
in Chicago working for IBM.) In 1996 “a chiropractor who was a member of
the Philadelphia Church down there [in Oklahoma] was indicted and sent
to prison for failure to pay taxes,” said Mr. Walburn. “The
chiropractor listed the PCG and Don Tiger as the parties with whom he
worked in the church.
“Mr.
Tiger had authorized the church to give the chiropractor a minister’s
housing credit. But the judge’s assumption, on behalf of the IRS, was
that the PCG was just giving these things [housing credits] away
illegally.”
So
after the doctor was indicted and sent to prison, some 18 months after
Mr. Tiger had served as treasurer, the court subpoenaed him to testify
at the man’s sentencing.
“The
question is why would Don need to testify after the man was convicted
of tax evasion?” said Mr. Walburn. “Don Tiger said what’s the point?” he
continued. “’I have no records. I haven’t been treasurer for a couple
of years now. I have nothing to say.’
Furthermore, the subpoena was
illegally written. It was not valid. So Don Tiger says, ‘I’m not going
to show up’ and delivered a letter informing the court of his
constitutional right to refuse based on legal grounds.”
At
that point Mr. Tiger asked PCG founder and director Gerald Flurry of
Edmond to hire an attorney on his behalf, but, according to Mr.
Walburn, Mr. Flurry refused to do so. “Gerald Flurry sold him out,” said
Mr. Walburn.
The
judge handling the chiropractor’s case is the same judge handling Mr.
Tiger’s federal case in Michigan. “The judge got mad and abused his
authority by sending his marshals and the IRS. But, when they
investigated Don, they found nothing.”
Fickle failings
Since
the beginning of Mr. Tiger’s troubles, the leaders of Church of God
organizations with which he has associated have “turned on him,” Mr.
Walburn told The Journal. “Don Tiger gave up a sizable income with IBM
and with banks in Chicago to work with these churches. He sincerely
worked with all these splinter groups, and the leadership of every one
of them has turned out to be just another Judas Iscariot. They have all
betrayed him.”
Mr.
Walburn wasn’t in a mood for mincing words. He continued: “Some leaders
of Church of God splinter groups have been found to be hypocrites time
after time,” he said. “Don Tiger’s legal troubles stem from his
association with the Philadelphia Church of God and Restored Church of
God.
“Don
came to understand that the leadership in both organizations is
incompetent, and from that realization grew disagreement. Once you
disagree with men like Gerald Flurry and Dave Pack, they immediately
want to get rid of you. That is my understanding and experience.” Mr.
Walburn said the “brethren” of the groups “have been very supportive of
Don. They’re the soldiers in the fight. The leaders are the sponges that
want the tithes.
“Dave
Pack and his henchmen have even driven by Don Tiger’s house and honked
at him just to harass him. “Frankly, every step of the way I warned him
about these churches.”
In
the United States, Mr. Walburn said, “you’re guilty if you’re arrested.
You are considered guilty by the district attorney and the police and
the judge. Let’s face it: When you’re arrested everyone thinks they had
to have something on you to arrest you. “But, if you look at the federal
case in Michigan, it’s a completely unjust use of power by a judge.
Remember, the federal judge in Ohio agreed with Don Tiger.”
Fair-weather friends
Mr.
Walburn, who comes from a WCG background and is now a Modern Orthodox
Jew who attends synagogue each Sabbath, said he had tried to warn Mr.
Tiger about the fickleness of the Church of God leaders he was trying to
assist.
“He’s
been working on these CDs for the last 10 years. All he wants to do,
for the sake of history, is preserve and make available the writings of
Herbert Armstrong that have been taken out of circulation. He isn’t
making any statement about what is accurate or inaccurate in those
writings.”
Mr.
Walburn and Mr. Tiger got acquainted in 1985. “We both worked for the
Bank of America in those days, when he started getting interested in
putting together all the Worldwide News issues, The Plain truth, The
Good News, the correspondence-course lessons, all of it on CDs, just
copying them and putting them on CDs as the technology warranted. That’s
all he wanted to do.”
Erosion of freedom
Mr. Walburn concluded his interview with The Journal with a statement about the “erosion” of freedom in America.
“Our
freedom is the only thing we have in this country that makes us
different from any other nation,” he said. “America needs to wake up and
realize that the court systems are not our friend. They take our
freedoms away every day. I could tell you horror stories.”
He
says that, once Mr. Tiger’s legal troubles are settled, he will advise
his friend that he should “go to work for a top-10 firm somewhere and
get out of helping these churches. I think he’s just about learned his
lesson.”
The
Journal tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to contact Mr. Pack to
include his comments in this article. But, just before this issue went
to press, the attorney for Mr. Pack’s Restored Church of God, Craig
Beidler of Wadsworth, telephoned The Journal.
“The
church’s position is not to sensationalize the matters involving Don
Tiger, attorney Beidler said. “There are aspects that are still under
investigation by civil authorities, and I’m really not at liberty right
now to indicate to what extent that may or may not involve the church.
Criminal investigations by their very nature are not matters that you
can discuss much while they are going on.”
Mr.
Beidler said the church does not want to “make all kinds of claims of
theft” against Mr. Tiger. “We’re really trying to reserve comment in
regard to what did or didn’t happen here. As far as the indictment
against him is concerned, it is for matters that don’t involve the
church per se.”
Mr.
Walburn has set up a legal-defense fund for Mr. Tiger. Mr. Walburn said
Mr. Tiger would also welcome cards and letters of encouragement. Write
Mr. Tiger or contribute to the fund in care of Mr. Walburn at 2814
Mataro St., Pasadena, Calif. 91107, U.S.A.
Reprinted from The Journal: News of the Churches of God, July 31, 2000.
