Financial Fraud and Other Crimes Perpetrated by Church Officers Who Remain Free From Oversight Due To Separation of Church and State Doctrine ‘Gone Awry’ in America.

“In God’s Name”, a series of articles written by Diana Henriques and published in The New York Times in October-November, 2006, highlights government support for secrecy, collusion, and corruption as perpetrated by religious institutions under the banner “Separation of Church and State”. The debate over where the line should be drawn separating church and state is no longer valid. It seems there is no line.

"The special breaks amount to 'a sort of religious affirmative action program',” said John Witte Jr, director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory University law school.

Reporter and journalist Betsy Combier is a long-time member of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church (“MAPC”) located at 73rd and Madison Avenue on prime real estate in New York City. Her mother worked for more than 40 years as a volunteer for MAPC, and secretly told Ms. Combier all about a racketeering scheme perpetrated by the Session members and Trustees of the Church in collusion with the City of New York, the law firm of Proskauer Rose, a New Jersey construction company called Prudon & Partners, and MAFIA mobster Vincent “Gigante” Chin. Ms. Combier found additional members of this “Family” to be the Unified Court System of New York State and five prominent Attorneys. She gathered information by talking with the porters who worked in the Church, “MAPC”, and by listening to her mother, who died on March 16, 1998.

The way this scheme works: the church officers report to the members that repairs need to be done. Then, the repairs are made and the construction company is paid outrageous sums which are doubled or tripled when listed on the budget, so that collaborators within and outside the church can be paid kickbacks and bonuses. Currently in America, no federal agency has the mandate to review church records. Therefore, using a religious institution for criminal activities is a perfect crime, because every official can say that “this is not under my jurisdiction.” Proskauer Rose, one of the law firms involved, also provides financing agreements to selected people and then bases these deals upon the property value and tax-free status of the church. Guide One Insurance Company located in West Des Moines, Iowa is the insurer for the Church, and pays law firms, judges, and Attorneys to prosecute anyone who protests, which Ms. Combier did in 1998 after she was thrown out of the church 10 days after her mother’s death. She filed a complaint with the Presbytery of New York City. Her mother had left Ms. Combier her apartment and all the property in it in a valid Will drawn up in 1997. The Church officers, angry that the property was not left to them, decided to gather the “Family” together and steal it. Ms. Combier decided at the same time to expose the fraud and racketeering.

RETALIATORY ACTION: The Associate Minister of MAPC obtained the ashes of Ms. Combier’s mother on March 22, 1998, and would not return them to her, even though she was the Executrix and Beneficiary of her mother’s property as stated in the Will. This man, Charles Amstein, also directed the Session of the Church to throw Ms. Combier out of the Church membership. She was thrown out on March 31, 1998. Ms. Combier filed a complaint with the Presbytery of New York City on June 23, 1998, and soon after, Guide One hired the Law Firm of Michael E. Pressman to prosecute Ms. Combier. The Presbytery and the higher church Tribunal, the Synod, dismissed the complaint in July 1999. Ms. Combier then sued in New York State Supreme Court for relief from the withholding of her mother’s ashes and the Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress. Guide One paid the Judge, NYS Supreme Court Judge Lottie Wilkins, to make sure that Ms. Combier received no damages. A first trial, March-April 2004, ended with the jury giving Ms. Combier an award of $500,000. Judge Wilkins immediately declared a mistrial and ordered a new trial for the same day, one hour later, with a new jury. The Attorneys, in on this deal, postponed the second trial until May 10, so that a fabricated story of fighting between Ms. Combier and her twin could be made up and presented as fact to the new jury. The second jury found that the Church was liable for withholding the ashes, but “justified”. This decision was made in 19 minutes. Ms. Combier appealed, and the Appellate Court agreed that the church was liable but “justified” in withholding the ashes from Ms. Combier, despite there being no supporting evidence.

Meanwhile, Guide One hired a lawyer to pursue the stealing of the property left to Ms. Combier in her mother’s Will. Mr. Kenneth Wasserman contacted Surrogate Court in Manhattan in June, 1999 and worked out a strategy of extortion with Surrogate Court Judge Renee Roth and her Senior Attorney, Mary Santamarina, where Ms. Combier would be threatened with losing everything if she did not give ½ the property to Wasserman. Surrogate Court Judge Renee Roth ordered all the property left to Ms. Combier be given to Ms. Ethel Griffin, the Public Administrator because, the Judge wrote in an order dated July 22, 2006, Ms. Combier’s mother never wrote a Will at all, and died “intestate”. Ms. Combier had heart failure and stayed three days at Lenox Hill Hospital.

In November 2005, Guide One filed an Order for Prior Restraint with the trial Judge Lottie Wilkins, asking that Ms. Combier be gagged, and prevented from posting anything about Guide One on her website, http://www.parentadvocates.org. They lost after Ms. Combier wrote a brief in defense of her First Amendment rights. That did not stop them. They made up a derivative Trust case and bought another Supreme Court Judge, Karla Moskowitz, in August 2006 to prosecute Ms. Combier, who will be placed on trial in May 2007 for allegedly stealing money from her grandfather’s Trust that ended in 1999. Mr. Wasserman is, according to a conversation with a police detective on January 2, 2007, paid by Judge Moskowitz to harass her.

RESULTS: Ms. Combier has personally spoken with the District Attorney for New York City, Robert Morganthau, and has given the information to his chief investigator Daniel Castleman in 2006. Mr. Castleman asked his “best” fraud investigator, Ms. Judy Weinstock, to investigate. A month later she sent all the documents back to Ms. Combier saying “Sorry, we cannot investigate because you did not give us a receipt for the $169,224 paid to Prudon & Partners fix the toilet”…despite the payment being printed out on the NYC Buildings’ work order dated June, 2004. Mr. Bill Jorganson, an investigator with former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, called Ms. Combier in December 2006 and told her “This is a clear-cut case of racketeering, but we cannot look into it. Do not call again.” The Presbytery has admitted to never seeing any financial records of MAPC. The church is once again under construction by Prudon & Partners. Ms. Combier will be tried and convicted of theft of her grandfather’s Trust that ended in 1999 and for which both she and her sister were remaindermen, not fiduciaries. Mr. Wasserman wants $2 million in damages, and as Judge Moskowitz seems to be paying him to pursue Ms. Combier, she will prosecute Ms. Combier until payments are made. Guide One Insurance Company has vowed to pursue Ms. Combier at any cost to retaliate against her for her article posted on her website:

Without a Prayer For Relief: The NY State Supreme Court is Bought By Guide One Insurance Company and a Church, Madison Avenue Presbyterian

CONCLUSION: America must legislate a new line separating church and state. We must stop insurance companies from buying our nation’s courts, judges, clerks, and attorneys, and we must stop putting religious institutions and their personnel and Trustees, above the law. There must be oversight and regulation of religious income and expenditures, just as there are for other entities.

See:
A Wealthy Church in New York City Uses Church Property as Collateral in Financing Expensive Real Estate Deals