Ministry sees profit in prophecy

Pitch sessions for Greater Ministries International mix religion with promises of wealth and an untouchable plan.

The Tampa Tribune, August 16, 1999
By Michael Fechter

TAMPA - The secret was in the Scriptures all along. It took Gerald Payne to find it.

Payne, founder and president of Greater Ministries International, said he has turned prophecy into a financial program that has given $500 million to its donors in seven years.

State and federal investigators see it a bit differently, believing Payne is running a lucrative Ponzi scheme that ultimately could cost people millions of dollars.

During pitch sessions for Greater Ministries ``Faith Promises'' program captured on videotape last January, Payne and other ministries officials encourage doubters to get in the program and boast that because it came from God, no governmental power can stop it.

The meetings, held Jan. 20-22 in Richmond, Va., Lancaster, Pa., and Painesville, Ohio, were videotaped by Greater Ministries. A copy of the tape, which the group offers for sale, was obtained last week by The Tampa Tribune.

The revelation for the program, which doubles someone's money in 17 months or less, came to him years ago when he read Luke 6:38, Payne said. ``Give and it shall be given unto you ... For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again,'' the verse reads. In essence, Payne said, it's a matching-funds program.

``Lord, you didn't mean this just for that time that you were here. You must have meant this for this time,'' Payne said in Lancaster. ``And he said he did.''

Each speaker pushed fence-sitters to commit to the program and stop missing out on money they could be making already.

``I'm beginning to wonder about our sanity, about our intelligence,'' said John Krishak, a singer who also is the local representative for Greater International Bank of Nauru. ``It's like the people we show our program to and they go, `I dunno.' What are you, nuts?''

Patrick Henry Talbert, introduced as a church elder who runs a legal center for the ministries, suggested that people sell their businesses and equipment and turn the money over to the ministry. Those who do would make more money than they did in business and have more time for God, he said.

There's not a lot of detail on the tapes explaining how Greater makes ends meet. References are made to gold and overseas accounts, but nobody explains how the money is invested or the returns made.

It's God's program, not his, Payne said. And God won't let any local, state or federal government stop it.

Payne delights in recounting an appearance before a federal grand jury investigating possible fraud and money laundering.

``The feds say, `We know you received over $200 million. Now, where did the rest come from?' Isn't it beautiful how they do that? ... I said, `Haven't you heard about the loaves and the fishes?' ''

Payne also accuses the Internal Revenue Service of stealing $3.5 million in an unsolved robbery at the ministries' headquarters last summer. ``We have the proof,'' Payne said.

Tampa police closed that investigation earlier this month without any leads. A security guard and Payne's wife Betty told officers responding to the robbery that the Paynes took the church's money home the night of the robbery. The next day, in an interview with a detective, Gerald Payne corrected his wife and said no money went home.

Payne did not return a telephone call seeking comment. A spokeswoman ,said nobody from the ministries is willing to comment. Payne filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Tribune and newspapers in Pennsylvania and Kentucky on April 28.

Charles Eidson, former leader of the anti-Semitic Church of the Avenger, had a letter delivered to the Tribune on Friday demanding the paper publish rebuttals. The paper is ``in effect calling our Lord and Savior a damnable liar by using your article to quote his teachings,'' wrote Eidson, who signed the letter as the ministries' general counsel.

Payne, Talbert, Krishak, Eidson and at least five other Greater Ministries officials were named unindicted co-conspirators in the recent obstruction of justice and conspiracy trial of Emilio Ippolito and his common law court. Ippolito and six co-defendants await sentencing after being convicted Aug. 13.

In addition, Payne has served 39 days in jail for a 1979 conviction of lying to a grand jury. Hall served two months in jail for violating a domestic violence injunction in 1995.

Talbert has at least two civil suits against him claiming he bilked people of a combined $125,000 in two bogus investment schemes.

Eidson has been convicted of practicing law without a license and is free while appealing his 1993 conviction on three counts of wire fraud and one count of violating the federal Clean Water Act.

(CHART) (C) Multiplying the loaves

A reproduction of a Greater Ministries International solicitation that investigators suspect may be a Ponzi scheme.

``First $250 (top of diagram) does not yield a blessing until the seventh month - then it is $50 per month for the next ten months; But if it is accompanied (back up) by two other $250 gifts - $750 total - In this situation the top 250 increment (or any other backed up by two gifts) will begin yielding immediately; actually @ the 17th to 25th of the month following the deadline of the 5th of the preceding month.''

Source: Greater Ministries fact sheet

CAITLIN HOPE WRIGHT/Tribune graphic

OAI:

PEH: GREATER MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL FAITH PROMISES PROGRAM FINANCE INVESTIGATION