Posted on 12/03/2021 8:31:52 AM PST by DFG
Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen has been questioned by police after 'bags and bags' of cash and checks were found in about 500 envelopes in a bathroom wall at Lakewood Church in Texas.
A plumber who worked at the church and only gave his first name, Justin, called into a Houston radio morning 100.3 The Bull show to tell them about his shocking discovery, which comes seven years after about $600,000 in donations was stolen and hasn't been recovered.
Justin was called in to America's largest church, Lakewood Church, on November 10 to fix a broken toilet, he said.
'There was a loose toilet in the wall, and we removed the tile,' he explained during the call Thursday morning. 'We went to go remove the toilet, and I moved some insulation away and about 500 envelopes fell out of the wall, and I was like 'Oh wow!''
He said hundreds of envelopes were filled with cash and checks. Houston police confirmed to DailyMail.com that cash and checks were found in the wall, and that they talked to 'everybody associated with the building' they were able to contact.
In 2014, $600,000 worth of donations were stolen from the church. The amount was just a portion of donations made from one weekend of services and it has never been found.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I’m shocked. /s
Yeah Right
God wants him to be rich!
Why would anyone stash checks? That’s just ignorant
Uh oh
Somebody stole unopened offering envelopes and stashed them for later retrieval, but apparently never retrieved them.
Hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of God.
So much cash, they could lines the bathroom walls with it!
Talk about whizzing money away.
(But who knows — it could be that an unaccountable accountant found a convenient place to make deposits on the fly when no one was looking.)
In any case, the jokes write themselves...
Uncashed checks and cash? That sounds like an underling who never came back for the booty. Osteen wouldn’t leave uncashed checks and cash around in his own church, that’s dead money in a dangerous place. He has much better ways to skim if he wants to skim.
There’s a special place in Hell reserved for these charlatans.
“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.
Matthew 7:15-20. NLT
Why would anyone stash checks? That’s just ignorant
That would seem to be the clue that Osteen was not involved because stashing checks, if they were donations, would only harm both the church and himself.
It sounds more like a spite attack, unless the stashed checks were meant to be a false trail...a diversion.
$600,000 was PART of one weekend of donations?
“Just a portion” of the donations made in ONE WEEKEND!
Just imagine what has accumulated over the years of this perpetual scam.
There is a special place for these people.
The plumber framed him ....
Knowing very little about the man other than his name, the fact is that this ‘hoard’ was found at his church, a building where access was likely easy. As pastor, of course he is called upon to answer questions BUT that does not make him immediately guilty.
The fact that this was discovered after YEARS from the reported loss, presuming that this is that loss, suggests that the thief was unable to retrieve OR did not want to retrieve. If there are only checks in these envelopes, the latter reason is likely. Guaranteed that there will be a careful search for exterior fingerprints.
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