Arizona minister gets maximum sentence in fraud
Source: Arizona Republic
A Mesa minister with a worldwide following will spend five years in federal prison for his part in a $5.5 million real-estate fraud that sent more than a dozen Valley homes into foreclosure.
A federal judge gave Clint Rogers the maximum prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy charge and admitted using his ministry to launder millions of dollars generated from a home-flipping scheme.
Rogers is the head of Mesa-based Clint Rogers Ministries and conducts faith-healing events at churches throughout the United States, Africa, Asia and Europe.
The scheme, commonly referred to by authorities as a cash-back operation, plagued housing markets across the country during the height of the real-estate boom in the mid-2000s. Participants would lie on applications about home values, transfer title from one buyer to another while obtaining loans on the bloated price, and then pocket the difference.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2012/07/26/20120726mesa-minister-gets-maximum-sentence-fraud.html
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Visioned -- is that even a verb -- by Oral Roberts himself in beautiful Tulsa, OK. His inspiration was to found a medical school at Oral Roberts University that would feature faith healing (as did Oral as his main scam).
Of course, today we still have these scammers. My favorites are Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff, who milk sick people for huge piles of cash with the promise of healing that will never come.
Meanwhile the money they spend to these frauds could go to medicine which could help. But they spend it on frauds, like Oral, Benny, Peter, and their ilk, who only want their money and care nothing about their health.
Terrible people. My anger is like a thousand H-bombs about the scams they inflict on credulous people.
Sorry for the rant.
Now there was a man who knew how to keep those donations rolling in. I used to send him money in a buddy's name just to keep him on their list. It was the best $20 a guy could spend on a practical joke.
