Columbia, Illinois - When he applied to become Joyce Meyer Ministries' security manager in 2000, Chris Coleman said he was a well-trained security operative commissioned to protect presidents, according to ministry records.
The records show that Coleman, accused of killing his wife and two young sons in Columbia, wrote in his application that he was a former Marine and had "numerous top-secret government clearances."
He also wrote that he was "attached" to the Secret Service and had served on "numerous presidential and heads of state security details."
Coleman served in the Marines from 1995 to 1999, according to his application.
Coleman earned $100,000 a year after landing the Joyce Meyer job. The records don't indicate what steps the ministry may have taken to verify his background.
According to ministry documents, Coleman traveled about 120 days a year as televangelist Joyce Meyer's "private security manager." He worked in the Fenton-based ministry's executive offices.
The documents were released Monday to the Post-Dispatch by Jack Carey, a lawyer representing Sheri Coleman's family. They have sued Chris Coleman for wrongful death. He is charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
The ministry sought to keep the records confidential, but a judge ruled that they could be released to the lawyers for Sheri Coleman's family. The lawyers did not release other records they received, including private flight manifests and the ministry's employee handbook, saying they were still reviewing those documents.
The records released show that Coleman was given a $10,000 pay advance from the ministry one day after his wife, Sheri, 31, and sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, were found strangled in their bedrooms on May 5. The records don't indicate what the advance was to be used for.
Coleman, 32, resigned from the ministry on May 13, the day he admitted to an affair with a woman in Florida, according to a ministry memo.
He told the ministry the affair began in November 2008 and that he met the woman "in Houston, Texas, and in Honolulu, Hawaii."
The documents indicate the ministry was prepared to fire Coleman but later accepted his resignation. In the ministry's "personnel notification" to Coleman, the typed phrase "it is management's decision to terminate" was crossed out and replaced in handwriting with "Chris Coleman's decision."
Also in Coleman's application, he said he didn't drink alcohol, smoke or use prescription drugs. The documents state he was "born again" in 1986 and began speaking in tongues in June 1988.
Coleman became familiar with the ministry years ago through his mother, who used to attend Joyce Meyer meetings when "there was only 14 or 15 women attending them," he wrote in his job application.
