Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Times Of San Diego reports:
The former pastor of an Imperial County-based church and his wife were sentenced in San Diego federal court Friday following their guilty pleas to benefits fraud charges, in a case that originally stemmed from allegations that the church’s leaders forced homeless people to surrender their welfare benefits and panhandle to benefit the organization.
Victor Gonzalez, who headed Imperial Valley Ministries, was sentenced Friday to six months in prison, plus six months of home confinement, while his wife, Susan Gonzalez, was given a time-served sentence.
The pair are among a dozen defendants who were indicted on allegations of recruiting homeless people in San Diego and other cities, then forcing them to raise money on behalf of the El Centro-based church.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports:
Prosecutors alleged IVM leaders forced program participants to panhandle for the financial benefit of its leadership and kept those who joined IVM confined in group homes against their will. They were required to hand over all identification and personal belongings to church directors, and church rules included no contact with family members for 30 days after joining.
IVM participants were prohibited from seeking employment outside of daily panhandling for the church, the plea agreement states, with those who did not meet certain quotas or those who refused to panhandle subject to expulsion.
The defendants also unlawfully took and distributed benefits the victims received through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, according to the plea agreement. Gonzalez lived for free in a home in El Centro, received a weekly salary and “other financial benefits such as occasional $1,000 ‘blessings’ from IVM,” the plea states.
The Daily Mail reports:
The victims were compelled to beg strangers on the street for money up to nine hours a day for six days a week. The church leaders used several coercion methods to keep their workforce in line.
Sometimes the IVM staffers simply refused to take their involuntary workers home. Other times the victims were told their children would be taken away if they left or that their loved ones had rejected them and they had no where else to go – that ‘only God’ loved them.
Anyone who got out of line could be denied food to eat, according to prosecutors. The clergy members locked their victims in their group homes with deadbolts, denying them the right to leave.
My 2019 report on the arrests is here.
Victor Gonzalez, who headed Imperial Valley Ministries, was sentenced Friday to six months in prison, plus six months of home confinement, while his wife, Susan Gonzalez, was given a time-served sentence. https://t.co/I5viyjLoJP
— Times of San Diego (@TimesofSanDiego) January 6, 2023