In May I posted an article and video about Jim Staley, a Sabbatarian
minister that many COG members follow, had been found guilty of fraud.
That article is here: Jim Staley, Sabbatarian Church leader Found Guilty of Bilking 3.4 Million Dollars From Elderly Investors
The latest is that he has been sent to prison:
The article quotes one member who said this:Pastor at 'Passion for Truth' church sentenced to prison for swindling the elderly.
Jim Staley, 40, was sentenced Wednesday to 7 years in prison and ordered to repay elderly investors $3.3 million. He pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud and profited $570,000 in the scam of elderly people who trusted him because of his Christian faith and family values. Some of them were suffering from dementia.
Armstrongism has always been filled with this same kind of corruption. In Pasadena gold and silver investment scams went on all the time. Church members believed the other members and ministers and gave them hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in money. Even single one of them lost their life savings. The prevailing thought was, if it was a church member saying this then why would they lie? Why would our minister lie to us?“The dishonesty was a big problem for me,” Josh Ernst told the paper. “I started to see a pattern — he used the same sorts of excuses, blamed other people, and nothing was ever his fault or his responsibility. That happened one too many times.”
It wasn't only men who led these con games. There was one woman in Pasadena that took hundreds of thousands of dollars from members. She got away with the con game. Her own children refused to do anything about her when confronted. They were beneficiaries of her money so why would they. Widows suffered greatly because of this women and led one to an early grave.
You can read more about Staley and his Sabbatarian movement here and here.