BROWNSVILLE, Texas (ABP) — Contrary to an Internet blogger's assertions, all documents pertaining to a probe into misappropriated Texas Baptist church-starting funds in the Rio Grande Valley have been turned over to federal authorities, a high-ranking official in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston said.
Tim Johnson, first assistant in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the southern district of Texas, confirmed receipt of materials related to an investigation initiated by the Baptist General Convention of Texas into allegations of fraud and misappropriation of church-starting funds.
“We have received a package of information. We are not an investigative agency. We have forwarded that information to the appropriate federal agency,” Johnson said, adding he could not comment further on the matter.
But David Montoya, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Mineral Wells, Texas, has lately used his blog to say there was no indication a criminal investigation was being aggressively pursued.
He called on readers of his blog to contact the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI and the Texas Attorney General and urge them to act regarding the charges of fraud and misappropriation of church-starting funds.
Subsequently, Montoya posted on the blog a letter he received from James Buchanan, chief of the fraud section for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston.
“To date, I have not received a report or any other information concerning these individuals from any private investigator,” Buchanan wrote in the letter, dated Sept. 5.
Montoya responded by posting weblog entries titled “No information has been turned over!” and “The big, big mistake: Trusting [BGCT Executive Director] Charles Wade.”
Michael Rodriguez, the Brownsville, Texas, lawyer and former federal prosecutor who helped conduct the investigation for the BGCT, reported he not only delivered all of the materials to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brownsville but also made himself available for any follow-up questions.
“I met on at least two if not three occasions with the attorney directing the investigation in the Brownsville office,” he said, adding he also met once with Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Lara, who heads the office.
BGCT leaders had enlisted Rodriguez — together with attorney Diane Dillard and Carlos Barrera, a certified public accountant and certified fraud examiner — to investigate allegations that church-starting funds in the Rio Grande Valley were mismanaged and misused.
At an Oct. 31, 2006, meeting of the BGCT Executive Board, the investigators reported they discovered up to 98 percent of the 258 church-starts reported by three pastors in the Valley no longer exist, and some were “phantom churches” that never existed except on paper. The BGCT gave more than $1.3 million in start-up funding and monthly financial support to those 258 churches, which were started by Otto Arango, Aaron de la Torre and Armando Vera.
Two weeks later, at another meeting scheduled immediately prior to the BGCT annual meeting in Dallas, the board directed Wade to explore with legal counsel whether to refer the reports' findings to “any appropriate government investigatory agency.”
Wade notified the board by e-mail Dec. 11 that the full report and all supporting documents had been submitted to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Montoya has continued to refute that assertion. In one blog entry, he wrote: “The evidence now indicates that Wade never turned the information over. It was all a smokescreen. Those who have been involved in the letter-writing campaign to the office of the US District Attorney for the southern district of Texas are finding out that the information and the complaint was never turned over. The chief fraud investigator has not been given any information. There is no investigation ongoing through the U.S. Attorney's Office.
“Once again, Texas Baptists have been used. The Executive Committee of the BGCT needs to fire Charles Wade immediately because he lied or else intentionally misled Texas Baptists to believe something was being done. There exists proof that he has done nothing and written proof that he himself admits that he knows of nothing being done.”
In a later blog, Montoya characterized statements by “those who are trying to say the letter was sent to me by someone in a different office than the one the BGCT turned the ValleyGate report over to” as just “more spin control.”
He quoted an unnamed source in the Brownsville U.S. Attorney's Office as saying the material should have been turned over to the McAllen, Texas, office or, better yet, the FBI.
Rodriguez, who served in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brownsville from 1999 to 2002, said he recommended the BGCT turn over the files there because an earlier criminal investigation regarding the same charges had been initiated there as well.
Jim Nelson of Austin, Texas, the chairman of a committee that oversees the implementation of motions related to the scandal in the Valley, affirmed Rodriguez for his work and expressed full confidence that the U.S. Attorney's Office would deal with the matter professionally.
“A copy of the investigative report and all exhibits have been turned over to the U.S. Attorney's office in the southern district of Texas, with whom we will stay in touch through our legal counsel,” Nelson's committee reported to the Executive Board in February.
Nelson, an attorney, affirmed the wisdom of the advice Rodriguez offered to the BGCT: Allow the U.S. Attorney's Office to proceed at its own pace as it deems appropriate.
“To push them would not be productive,” Nelson said.
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