c. 2008 Religion News Service

Adventists on trial on fraud charges

LONDON (RNS) Four churchgoers have gone on trial in a London court on charges of conning fellow Seventh-Day Adventists out of about $6.3 million through a series of bogus investment schemes.

Prosecutors said the quartet, themselves Seventh-Day Adventists, used their shared religious backgrounds to lure more than 1,000 of their fellow worshippers into phony investments with promises of returns as much as 25 times their original outlay.

The four posed as traders in the British capital’s financial district and told their victims “that money that was obtained from them was going to be invested on their behalf,” one prosecuting attorney, Stephen Winberg, told Southwark Crown Court.

“It was not,” Winberg said. “Hardly any of it was invested.”

Instead, authorities said, the four went on a monumental escapade of “wild extravagance,” spending their takings from their scams on luxury cars, vacations, money-laundering and a $100,000-a-day spending spree in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East.

While in Dubai, prosecutors said, the alleged con men _ Lindani Mangena, Dean Hinkson, Curtis Powell and Jordan Huie _ put down a deposit on a luxury apartment valued at $9.4 million.

At one point during their seven-month scam, police said, the four were raking in so much money that they had to buy a cash-counting machine to keep track of it all.

“The aim, as with all frauds, was to get victims to part with their money,” said Stephen Winberg. The victims were promised “staggering rates of return” on their investment _ rates “so attractive that people tended to suspend their judgment.”

However, the prosecutor suggested that the victims were themselves at least partly to blame for their expensive predicament. “They naively accepted the absurd claims of the returns they could make on the money … ”

“Their suspicions,” Winberg said, “were not aroused by the absence of things like receipts that you might expect when you invested money.”

The trial was expected to last several days.

_ Al Webb

Bush visits Bethlehem holy sites

JERUSALEM (RNS) President Bush prayed at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Thursday (Jan. 10), the second day of a three-day peace-seeking visit to Israel and the Palestinian-ruled territories.

Bush, a devout Christian, toured the imposing stone Nativity church following a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Accompanied by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and robed clergymen, Bush strolled through the church, built atop the spot traditionally believed to be the site of Jesus’ birth, with the Rev. Pierre Batista, who is in charge of all church property in the region.

The church is administered by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Christian denominations.

Bush and Rice later visited the nearby Franciscan Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria, built in 1882.

The Rev. Marwan Dides, one of the Franciscan monks who acts as a caretaker of the Nativity Church, said the president spent several minutes walking through its hushed, shadow-filled main sanctuary before descending to the grotto, believed to be the place Mary gave birth to Jesus.

“He arrived punctually at 2 p.m. and he descended to the grotto with only (Batista) and the secretary of state,” Dides said. “They were down there for about 20 minutes. Afterward they visited St. Catherine’s Church. We, the friars, were asked to wait outside.”

Dides said Bush “shook every friar’s hand. There were about 15 of us. He said he was glad to be here, then spoke to some journalists. Then he said, `Let’s take the traditional picture.”’

The monk called the experience “amazing. It was the chance of a lifetime to see the American president and to shake his hand.”

“It’s been a moving moment for me and the delegation to be here,” Bush told reporters outside the church. “For those of us who practice the Christian faith, there’s no more holy site than the place where our Savior was born.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

During his visit to Bethlehem, Bush saw first-hand the towering 30-foot cement security barrier that Israel built to prevent terrorists from crossing into Israel. An armed checkpoint stands between Bethlehem and nearby Jerusalem.

Referring to the barrier and roadblocks that sometimes limit the Palestinians’ ability to reach their fields, visit family or to even attend religious services, Bush told the Reuters news agency, “I can see the frustrations. But I also understand that people in Israel … want to know whether there’s going to be protection from the violent few who murder.”

_ Michele Chabin

N.J. rejects request to close probe into civil unions flap

(RNS) New Jersey officials have refused to end an investigation of whether a Methodist group in Ocean Grove violated the rights of two lesbian couples by rejecting their applications to rent a seaside pavilion for their civil union ceremonies.

The state Division on Civil Rights rejected a motion by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association to dismiss complaints filed by the lesbian couples. The association argued that forcing it to use its property for civil unions would violate its constitutional freedom of religion.

In a five-page letter, Gary LoCassio, assistant director of civil rights, said that could be determined only after further investigation. He also said that conducting an inquiry “in no way interferes” with the religious liberty of the Methodist group that owns the pavilion.

LoCassio conceded that churches and religious programs are not subject to the state’s anti-discrimination laws, but said it was “far from clear” whether the Methodist group “meets the definition of a church or similar religious organization.”

That, LoCassio said, requires further investigation.

He said the division also must determine whether the association’s rental of its pavilion “is religious or secular in nature.”

It was the Methodist group’s second unsuccessful attempt to bring the investigation to a quick end. In November, a federal judge dismissed the group’s lawsuit claiming the U.S. Constitution protects its right to use its property according to Methodist doctrine.

Larry Lustberg, a lawyer representing the lesbian couples, said his clients are “pleased with the decision and pleased that a full and thorough investigation will proceed.”

Brian Raum, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the Camp Meeting Association, said, “I’m amazed that the state could conclude it’s unsure whether the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association is a religious organization. It’s perfectly clear that it is _ it’s been operating as one for over 100 years.”

_ Robert Schwaneberg

Quote of the Day: Melkite (Catholic) Archbishop Elias Chacour of Israel

(RNS) “This is where Christ was calling on all his followers to get up and do something to get their hands dirty, protect the poor, heal the sick, release the prisoners _ including those in Guantanamo Bay, and I will tell him that.”

_ Melkite (Catholic) Archbishop Elias Chacour of Akko, Israel, about his plans to accompany President George W. Bush on a tour of the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount. He was quoted by Catholic News Service.

KRE/CM END RNS