Word: fraud
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...evangelical cousins. And despite thousands of pastors and churches that pursue their joyous vision without taint, scandal has dogged some of its most prominent figures. Among the best-known were the late 1980s downfalls of televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart: Bakker, who was undone by charges of fraud, and Swaggart who was caught with a prostitute, had preached a "theology of prosperity" suggesting that there would be divine rewards in this world for those who donated to the ministry...
...Usually, they do it for money; but not always. After 9/11, the Manhattan District Attorney's office charged 539 people with offenses related to the Trade Center collapse. The charges ran the gamut from trespassing to shoplifting to breaking and entering. But a majority of the arrests were for fraud. "People who tried to get benefits they were not entitled to," explains spokesperson Barbara Thompson. "Employees who said they'd lost their jobs; they hadn't. People who said they'd lost spouses; they didn't." In all, 76% of the criminal charges resulted in convictions...
Indeed, the legal strategy used so effectively in St. George grew out of a "polygamy summit" held in 2003 by the attorneys general of Utah and Arizona. They had brainstormed and decided to launch an aggressive effort to utilize child abuse, domestic abuse and fraud laws to break the cycle of child marriages. Bigamy, although against the law in Utah, is sometimes difficult to prove and does not carry the heavy penalties found in child abuse laws. Gary Gale, an Ogden, Utah defense attorney who has worked in several high-profile cases involving polygamy, knows this well. In January, Gale...
Christopher Hitchens once devoted an entire book to portraying Mother Teresa as a phony, so perhaps Billy Graham got off easy when Hitchens described him, in a recent C-Span appearance, as "a self-conscious fraud," who didn't believe a word of what he preached, but was just in business for the money...
...trying to win favor with the king by embracing even his most odious ideas. "I think I was just trying to agree with what he said or something," Graham told us. Hitchens may reject Graham's many apologies if he chooses, and discount his remorse more evidence of fraud. But rational people should have a hard time accepting Hitchens' characterization of Graham as "a disgustingly evil...