Unholy church leaders launch hellish insurance cons

Date: 05/12/2010  Subject: Public awareness
Author: James Quiggle

Carva White possessed an unheavenly urge to convert his burned-up church’s ash to cash.

White was the music director at the Sunflower Missionary Baptist Church in Leavenworth, Kans. He convinced the head pastor to help hatch a devilish plot: torch the place, fool insurers into paying for repairs, then extract large bribes from contractors who would submit inflated bills for the work.

Pulpit-poisoning insurance schemes by unholy holy men and women such as White are rare. But ministering to insurance fraud does happen, leaving trails of betrayed parishioners, fleeced churches, stolen insurance money and ruined reputations.

White’s first fire came up short. It caused $20,000 to $30,000 in damage, which wouldn’t soak enough bribe money from contractors, White quickly decided. So he told head pastor Marvin Clay that he’d reload his matches and ignite a bigger blaze to line their pockets with more cash.

Second fire burned up church

Clay grew wobbly and tried to back out. But the undivine duo were in way too deep to quit, White retorted. So Clay continued along despite his misgivings. Big mistake.

Call it fate or coincidence, the next night was Halloween. White tried again, and this blaze caused far more damage.

Clay made the fraudulent insurance claim, and Church Mutual Insurance Company paid out $103,236 to make Sunflower Baptist whole again. But federal investigators later questioned Clay. He lied that, heavens, he couldn’t imagine who would want to hurt the church.

But the plot unraveled. The fire had started in several places inside the church, investigators discovered. That was a clear sign that shifty human hands were behind the blaze. The criminal charges came down hard.

The misguided music director finally faced the music: White received 12 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. Clay also was convicted, and awaits sentencing.

They have unsaintly company:

• Rev. Charles Shifflett headed up the Calvary Baptist Church in the Culpepper, Va. area. Shifflett claimed he hurt his back unloading a pony at a church function. But he inflated his income to fraudulently increase his workers compensation benefits, receiving more than $27,000 over six years. He also received four years in prison.

• Rev. Roland Gray insisted insurance fraud was his spiritual calling. But he rendered unto Caesar 4 1/2 years in prison for raking in $500,000 in insurance money by staging nearly 200 car accidents, plus fake slip-and-fall injuries in hotels and retail stores. “I let the Lord lead me and this is the way He instructed me,” the Baptist minister from Chicago said. Gray recruited parishioners and even his brother, also a minister. Many cars crashed, ran off the road or collided with deer or pedestrians, his gang lied to insurers. Some cronies claimed they were hurt in four crashes on the same day.

• Pastor Kenneth Leigh Montgomery headed up the Hilltop Community Church in Virginia Beach, Va. He received 10 months for lying to his church’s insurer that someone stole property from the church. The insurer paid the bogus claims. Montgomery then lied that the “stolen” possessions were his, convincing the church to reimburse him for the phantom goods.

• Indiana pastor Janie Lee Espinoza stole more than $250,000 from a military life policy intended for the six-year-old daughter of her own son, a solider who’d died in Iraq. Espinoza blew the loot on cars, jewelry, a timeshare in Florida, church pews and a baby grand piano. She received a maximum of four years.

And Denver-area Rev. Acen Phillips stole life-insurance money by forging signatures to policies, making himself beneficiary of much of the payouts, prosecutors contended. Nor did he tell a widow that the proceeds of a legitimate life policy whose payout he administered was $120,000 rather than $50,000. He pocketed much of the difference. Phillips received eight years of probation for the latter crime. Prosecutors didn’t charge him for the forgeries, in exchange for which he agreed to repay $500,000 in a plea deal.

Founder of the New Birth Temple of Praise Community Baptist Church, Phillips insisted his conviction imbued him with contrition. “I would like to apologize to the court and my community,” he said. “I would certainly like opportunity to redeem myself to the community.”

Amen to that.