Ministries' defense lawyer backs out
A lawyer's withdrawal indefinitely postpones the criminal trial for seven Greater Ministries leaders.
The Tampa Tribune, November 19, 1999
By Michael Fechter
TAMPA - Al Cunningham's emphasis on religious freedom appealed so much to Greater Ministries International Church that it hired the California lawyer as its general counsel in October 1998.
``He turns the courtroom into a pulpit,'' former elder Patrick Henry Talbert said during an elders meeting captured on videotape last year. Cunningham ``puts the gospel in there.''
On Thursday, Cunningham was excused as the church's lawyer, and criticized by church leaders for not communicating or working hard enough.
Cunningham had his own reasons for wanting out. He hadn't been paid since June, he said in court papers, and he found himself in conflict with his clients over strategy. Cunningham failed to attend the hearing he requested, telling the court he couldn't afford to fly in from his California home.
U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr. issued an order to show cause why Cunningham shouldn't be cited for contempt for failing to appear at the hearing. It would be Adams' second contempt order against Cunningham, the first coming when the lawyer arrived more than two hours late for a September hearing. Adams fined him $500.
His clients, Gerald and Betty Payne and Don Hall, now want a court- appointed lawyer.
``He's not defending us,'' Payne told Adams. ``We're being led to slaughter.''
They also cited irreconcilable differences with Cunningham that were not disclosed.
Cunningham has argued that religious beliefs allowed the church to run a program based on Scripture that doubles a person's money in 17 months or less. Securities regulators saw the program as an unlicensed investment program. Federal law enforcement saw pure fraud.
Thousands of people lost money when the program collapsed last year, shortly after a Colorado bank with $18 million in church money was declared insolvent. Federal investigators estimate the program's total take ranged between $100 million and $500 million.
Cunningham has argued that the church couldn't be licensed and could do as it pleased or it would ``place a sovereign greater than Jesus Christ over the Church in violation of the mandates of the Scriptures of the Holy Bible.''
That argument failed to ward off an injunction that evicted Greater Ministries from its Sulphur Springs headquarters in August. Securities regulators from Ohio and Alabama convinced U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara that the program defrauded people; he appointed a receiver to marshal its assets.
J. Michael Rediker, a private Alabama attorney working with the receiver, attended Thursday's hearing and reminded church elders they're not free of the law.
``We're seeking to take your money,'' Rediker told elder Keith Roadarmer.
The receiver, working with a bankruptcy trustee, hopes to seize assets related to the Greater Ministries program and return to investors at least some of what they lost.
While Cunningham said he hasn't been paid since June, some of those elders are touring the country soliciting money for defense costs. Rediker said he knows of meetings in Louisiana, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri and Colorado.
It's the second delay for the trial, a 20-count money laundering, fraud and conspiracy case centering on Greater Ministries' money- doubling financial program. Adams pushed it back to December from an October date because most church records were in the receiver's hands.
