Tag Archives: frauds

Over the last seven days…. Indiana: Father Byron Canada sentenced to 11 years in prison in $2.7M real estate scam.Arkansas: Pastor Robert Burnham resigns after bust in prostitution sting.Indiana: Pastor Vaughn Reeves sentenced to 54 years in prison for embezzling over $13M from church construction investors.New York: Rabbi Victor Koltun charged two counts of murder in the killings of a …

Televangelist/con artist/homophobe Cindy Jacobs tells an audience of college students that she has personally “stationed angels all around this church” in order to “pierce the darkness of humanism and atheism.” As a bonus in crazy, nasty homophobe Lou Engle comes on stage to babble in tongues and encourage the students to do the same. Mekka-lekka hi there!

Florida gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink just conceded the race to teabagger Rick Scott, who spent $75M of his stolen-from-the-people fortune to buy his way into a slim victory. In 2002 Scott’s hospital group paid the largest federal fine in history, a multi-billion dollar judgment assessed for pervasive and systematic Medicare fraud, yet Scott still walked away with $350M of that …

Continuing their campaign against food items falsely claiming to bring good health, the Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against the makers of Pom Wonderful for “making false and unsubstantiated claims that their products will prevent or treat heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction.” The FTC complaint alleges that POM Wonderful’s heart disease claims are false and unsubstantiated …

The Washington state woman who falsely claimed that a black girl threw acid in her face is being charged with theft for accepting donations from a fooled community. When she was first hospitalized, the woman told reporters that it was only through her faith in Jeebus that she survived the attack of the evil (nonexistent) black woman. (Tipped by JMG …

Some of you may recall twenty years ago when James Randi exposed Rev. Peter Popoff as a fraud who used a hidden earpiece connected to his wife to “reveal” to his audience what God was telling him about their personal lives. Popoff has returned to Christian television, selling “miracle water” and “sacred salt” to the tune of $23M a year.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown has filed suit against the Monterey County AIDS Project over at least $2.8M in missing and misspent funds. Attorney General Jerry Brown said that former officers and directors of the Seaside-based charity took some of the money for personal use and for-profit ventures, which was in violation of a state law and a May 2000 …

…for another gay blog impostor. Anybody remember the gay firefighter dad of two adopted sons who turned out to be a Canadian grandmother? UPDATE: Michael Triplett at Mediaite recaps the story nicely.

Prosperity gospel televangelist and “faith healing” scam artist Benny Hinn was unable to heal the desire of his wife to get the fuck away from him. The wife of televangelist has filed for divorce from the high-profile pastor, whose reputation as an advocate of prosperity gospel has attracted millions of followers and criticism from lawmakers and watchdog groups over his …

British investigative reporter Patrick Strudwick, an out gay man, went undercover in the UK’s network of “ex-gay” outfits to see how they pretend to pray the gay away. Here’s how just one of the “therapists” worked. She begins her wound hunt by asking about my family. I tell her that I have a close relationship with my parents and that …

NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed court papers to force state Sen. Pedro Espada to comply with a five month old subpoena regarding his many, many violations of campaign election laws, non-profit rules, and state labor laws. You may remember Espada as one of last summer’s Gang Of Three that upended the state Senate over a leadership battle peripherally …

NOM has expanded its lawsuit against Maine, now saying that not only should they not have to comply with financial disclosure laws regarding the source of funding for their ballot initiative campaigns, they should not have to disclose where they get the money they spend to support or oppose individual candidates. The National Organization for Marriage says it hopes to …

Rather than comply with Maine’s financial disclosure requirements, NOM is suing the state to overturn the law entirely. The biggest contributor to the group trying to overturn Maine’s gay marriage law is suing the state over its campaign reporting requirements. The state ethics commission voted Oct. 1 to take a closer look at contributions by the National Organization for Marriage …

When Rick Scott was the CEO of Columbia/HCA, then the nation’s largest health care provider, his company had to pay $1.7B, the largest fine in American history, for systematically defrauding the government on Medicare billing. Now Scott is the founder of the Conservatives For Patient Rights, the astroturf group buying airtime to oppose Obama’s health care reform plan. CNN’s Rick …

Last month OK state Rep. Sally Kern issued her Proclamation For Morality, a hateful resolution that blamed gays, among others, for the decline of the U.S. economy. The resolution has not been adopted, but according to a blog called The Lost Ogle, that didn’t stop the Baptist Messenger from forging the signatures of the governor and the secretary of state …

Claiming to have a “handshake deal” to be named NY Senate majority leader, Sen. Pedro Espada told the NY Post today that he is flipping back to the Dem side of the aisle, once again giving the Democrats a 32-30 edge in the deadlocked chamber. How many “majority leaders” does that make for the NY Senate in the last two …

Marion Barry, the noble defender of marriage who recently joined with Bishop Harry Jackson to fight DC’s same-sex marriage recognition bill, has been arrested for the 87th (or so) time. D.C. Council member Marion Barry was arrested last night and charged with stalking a woman after the woman reported that Barry was “bothering her” as the two traveled in separate …

And meanwhile he continues to swindle little old ladies out of their social security checks so he can buy more diamond mines and oil refineries.

Another blow to the unregulated supplements industry – the FDA has revealed that dozens of top selling “natural” weight loss supplements are actually full of dangerously high doses of prescription laxatives and diuretics. The names of the weight-loss supplements say it all: 7 Day Herbal Slim, 2 Day Diet, and even 24 Hours Diet. Those are just three of dozens …