Effin-Up-the-Church’s-Money:: Members Sue Bishop Eddie For Investment Scam
On Wednesday, 10 New Birth Missionary Baptist Church members filed a lawsuit against their pastor, Eddie Long. The victims claim that Long influenced them to invest in a company that turned out to be a scam. As a result, they lost over a million dollars (altogether).
Not to bring up “old stuff”, but can we (perhaps) rewind back to Long’s first (public) lawsuit. It occurred after 5 male church members accused him of sexual coercion. That suit was settled with an undisclosed agreement. His second lawsuit occurred when he was accused of defaulting in a $2mil bank loan.
According to this new (third) lawsuit, in October of 2009 Bishop Eddie Long invited Ephren Taylor to the church to host a seminar about his company, City Capital Corporation. Long encouraged his church members to invest in Taylor’s company, and stressed that Taylor was a good man. ALLEGEDLY, this is what he said to introduce Taylor:
“I am responsible for everyone I bring before you and what they say. The gentleman that I am going to bring before you is an ordained minister. That gives me great pride to bring him for you.”
Fast forward to the present day and now his members regret listening to him. They claim that they lost all the money they invested, even though Eddie Long was paid for the seminar. What’s kinda worse, is that they found out that Taylor no longer works for the company, and even when he did, he was not licensed to sell investments. Attorney Jason Doss said this:
“This company was failing and what he (Taylor) was trying to do was bail it out by bilking investors….”
Attorney Quinton Seay added:
“It’s a terrible thing, especially when you suffer a loss like that from your church and your pastor. A lot of them have been members at New Birth Baptist for a very long time. They were given some extremely bad advice.”
Eddie Long has made a public appeal for Taylor to return all of the money. Peep the appeal below: