Tampabay: Ministries elder given 19 1/2 years for fraud

TAMPA -- Another elder with Greater Ministries International Church was sentenced to a lengthy prison term on Wednesday for his role in a pyramid scheme that took in $448-million.

U.S. District Judge James Whittemore sentenced Patrick Henry Talbert to 191/2 years in prison. The sentencing came two days after Whittemore sentenced the church's leader, Gerald Payne, to 27 years. Payne's wife, Betty Payne, got almost 13 years.

The couple remained defiant to the end, saying they were persecuted by a government that trampled on their constitutional rights.

In contrast, Talbert, 53, expressed remorse for his involvement.

"I'm sorry for the harm I have caused all these folks," Talbert said. "My heart was not in hurting people."

A handful of supporters spoke glowingly of the times Talbert helped them straighten out their lives and how he was generous with his time and spiritual support. "Pat Talbert would give you the shirt off his back and the last dollar out of his pocket," said Gary Henderson, 46, who has known Talbert for most of his life. "If it wasn't for Pat Talbert, there would have been a lot of hungry kids in Tampa."

Talbert, however, already had a strike against him: He is two years into a 10-year sentence for a state court conviction for swindling $256,000 from 11 people, many of them elderly women. His federal sentence will run concurrently with the state sentence.

Whittemore acknowledged the two divergent sides of Talbert's life and the fact that he was one of the few people in the case who admitted they did something wrong. Whittemore sentenced him to the low end of the guidelines, which ranged up to about 25 years.

Whittemore also urged Talbert to cooperate with the government if he could help locate the money, much of which is still not accounted for. The cooperation could result in a reduction in his sentence.

"There are a lot of people who love and respect you and want you near them," the judge said.

Internal Revenue Service officials called Greater Ministries' Double Your Money Gift Exchange program one of the largest Ponzi schemes they had ever investigated. Between 1993 and 1999, the scheme defrauded more than 18,000 people.

During the seven-week trial that ended in March, prosecutors Robert Mosakowski and Jay Hoffer stacked up reams of bank records showing that payments to initial investors were made from funds forwarded by later waves of investors.

A jury handed down guilty verdicts on 72 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and unlawful monetary transactions against Talbert, the Paynes, Haywood E. Hall and David Whitfield. Hall was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, but Whittemore delayed his decision while he considers a legal challenge. Whitfield's sentencing is pending.

The investigation began in 1994 as IRS agents started looking at suspicious bank transactions -- $1.5-million in checks cashed by Gerald Payne, all in amounts less than the $10,000 federal currency reporting requirement.

Talbert and the others asked church members for cash. They told investors that the "gifts" were tax deductible and promised huge returns from investments in overseas banks and African gold and diamond mines. The elders earned 5 percent commissions totaling about $22-million, which they called "gas money."

Prosecutors said the Ponzi scheme collapsed in 1998, when Colorado regulators seized the Best Bank of Boulder, where the church had stashed $20-million in a checking account. Complaints mounted as investors suddenly stopped receiving payments. California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Alabama opened investigations into the church's finances.

- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. Graham Brink can be reached at (813) 226-3365 or brink@sptimes.com.

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