Florida Ministry Group Charged With Fraud

Reuters/March 12, 1999

TAMPA, Fla. - The founder of a Florida evangelistic group and six associates were arrested Friday on charges of operating a double-your-money investment plan that prosecutors called a pyramid scheme, federal agents said.

The defendants were affiliated with Greater Ministries International Inc., a Tampa group whose investment and fund-raising practices have come under scrutiny in several states.

The group has offered investment plans for years under names such as "Faith Promise" or "Double Your Blessings," targeting their solicitations to church congregations and claiming the money would be invested in silver and gold mines, according to published reports.

A federal grand jury indicted the group's founder, Gerald Payne, 62, and six associates Wednesday on at last 19 counts each of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conducting unlawful financial transactions. All seven were arrested Friday, the U.S. Attorney in Tampa said.

The indictment charged they had operated an investment program through the Greater Ministries since March 1993, promising investors their money would double within 17 months.

They created the illusion that the program was profitable by using new investors' money to pay returns to earlier investors, the indictment charged.

They did not put the money into profit-making ventures as promised, and failed to disclose that some of the investors money was paid in commissions to the group's elders, the indictment said.

Florida securities regulators had tried to shut the group down since 1995. Earlier this month, a Pennsylvania judge fined Greater Ministries $6.4 million for failing to comply with an order to halt solicitations for the plan in that state, which deemed it an illegal securities offering.

Pennsylvania tried unsuccessfully to force it to open its books to verify claims that it has extensive holdings in gold and platinum mines, published reports said.

The St. Petersburg Times said the group's holdings and operations included an herbal medicine center, a Kentucky hotel, a line of gold jewelry, thrift stores, a ministry for the homeless and a network of foreign missionaries.

Authorities in Liberia are also investigating allegations that Greater Ministries International abetted a scheme to illegally import equipment using tax import exemptions reserved for relief organizations, Africa News Service reported.

Arrested with Payne were Betty Payne, 59, Patrick Talbert, 50, Haywood Eudon Hall, 57, Dave Whitfield, 46, and Andrew Krishak, 47, all of Tampa, and James Chambers, 66, of Altamonte Springs, Florida.

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