From Barry Minkow’s former church, a condemnation
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When ZZZZ Best con man-turned-scam fighter Barry Minkow agreed to plead guilty to a new federal fraud charge, he quit as head minister of San Diego’s Community Bible Church.
“Pastor Barry no longer considers himself above reproach,” the church elders announced in March.
With Minkow’s sentencing approaching, the church now has issued a harsher critique, accusing its former leader of plundering church funds to finance his fraud-busting business and leading members of his flock to make ill-fated investments in an unreleased movie about his life, his attorney said Tuesday.
A lawyer for the church made the allegations in a letter to federal probation officials in Miami, who are preparing a sentencing report on Minkow. Summarizing the findings of a church audit, defense attorney Alvin Entin said, “It accused Barry of everything except being in bed with a live girl or a dead boy.”
The letter wasn’t made public in the court proceedings and Entin said confidentiality rules precluded him from releasing it. In a filing in U.S. District Court in Miami, he said: ‘This letter contains material which may negatively impact sentencing.’
Postponing Minkow’s sentencing, the judge on Tuesday granted Entin two weeks to review the allegations and to prepare his response. Entin said he would argue that Minkow had not wronged his congregants because he always returned funds he used to finance investigations by his Fraud Discovery Institute.
“Barry wasn’t stealing anything from the church,” Entin said. “He put in more than he took out -- in fact, he worked without pay for the last four years.”
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-- E. Scott Reckard
