fayfreethinkers.com

Thanks to Larry W. for passing this along:

Fallen Pastor Seeks Financial Support

By Associated Press

4:12 AM EDT, August 25, 2007

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.

The Rev. Ted Haggard, who left the megachurch he founded after admitting to "sexual immorality," has asked supporters for financial assistance while he and his wife pursue their studies.

The former New Life Church pastor plans to seek a master's degree in counseling at the University of Phoenix while his wife studies psychology, he said in an e-mail sent this week to KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs.

The couple and two of their sons planned to move Oct. 1 to the Phoenix Dream Center, a faith-based halfway house in Phoenix, where Haggard and his wife would provide counseling, the e-mail said.

"It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years," the e-mail said. "During that time we will continue as full-time students, and then, when I graduate, we won't need outside support any longer."

LINK

DAR
Okay, so the preacher is still begging for handouts. No surprise there. But now it gets really interesting:

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Ted Haggard and the Man Behind “Families With a Mission”

Ted Haggard, as we learned today on Colorado Confidential, wants you to pay for his and his wife’s living expenses while they go to college—they’re destitute, you see. (Colorado Confidential reports that the Haggards currently own a house in Colorado Springs valued at close to a three quarters of a million dollars.) In an open letter sent to Haggard’s gullible “supporters,” the disgraced preacher gives two addresses where money can be sent. Checks can be sent to Haggard’s mailing address in Phoenix or, if a supporter needs a tax deduction, checks can be sent to Families With a Mission, a charity based in Colorado Springs. “[Write] their check to ‘Families With A Mission’ and put a separate note on it that it is for the Haggard family,” Haggard writes in the letter posted on Colorado Confidential, “then Families With a Mission will mail us 90% of the funds for support and use 10% for administrative costs.”

As posted earlier, local attorney and Slog reader Dave Coffman located documents on file with the Colorado Secretary of State that showed Families With a Mission “voluntarily dissolved” on February 23, 2007.

Hm. Weird—who knew you could get a tax deduction from dissolved charity?

And it gets weirder: There’s only one name on file with the Colorado Secretary of State in connection with Families With a Mission: Paul Huberty.

Huberty is the “registered agent” of Families With a Mission and the registered agent’s mailing address—POB 63125, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3125—is the same address Haggard included in his letter to his supporters. Another address on file with the Colorado Secretary of State for Families With a Mission is 855 Pebble Creek Ct., Monument, CO 80132. That’s the charity’s “principal office mailing address.” According to the Assessor’s office in El Paso County, Colorado, 855 Pebble Creek Ct. is a private residence owned by Paul Huberty. (The only other address listed for Families With a Mission is a home that Huberty used to own.)

And here’s what Coffman learned when he started searching through public records: A man named Paul G. Huberty was convicted of having sex with his 17 year-old ward while he was in the military and stationed in Germany. Paul G. Huberty eventually moved to Hawaii, where he was on that state’s sex offender registry—you can download a PDF here. Hawaii’s sex offender registry mentions a conviction for a sex offense in 2004. Court records in Hawaii show that Paul G. Huberty was found guilty of attempted sexual assault in January of 2004 (download ‘em here, here, and here), and sentenced a year in jail with all but six months suspended.

it gets better...

DOUG
Damn, life is good!

UPDATE:

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Ted Haggard's Plea for Money Reproved

The latest request by former evangelical leader Ted Haggard for financial support was deemed "inappropriate" and "unacceptable" by overseers of the megachurch he founded and was fired from.

With plans to pursue a master's degree in counseling at the University of Phoenix while his wife, Gayle, studies psychology in the undergraduate program, Haggard had written an e-mail last week asking for financial assistance until he and his family has "adequate earning power again," according to the e-mail sent to KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs.

"Mr. Haggard's solicitation for personal support was inappropriate," the overseers at New Life Church in Colorado Springs said in a statement Wednesday.

Haggard, New Life's founding pastor, was fired last year after he confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and buying methamphetamine. A former male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year sexual relationship with the prominent evangelical leader.

After begin ousted, Haggard received a severance package from New Life, which included a year's salary of $138,000, and moved to Phoenix in April.

In his e-mail, Haggard wrote that he would move in to the Phoenix Dream Center, a half-way house for the homeless, recovering alcoholics, drug addicts and prostitutes, whom Haggard said he could identify with. The Dream Center is run by Tommy Barnett, who leads the 15,000-member Phoenix First Assembly of God that Haggard now attends. Haggard, in the past, has subscribed to a number of beliefs often associated with the charismatic movement.

However, the overseers, who were assigned to help Haggard after he was removed from New Life Church, said Haggard will not be moving in or providing any counsel at the Dream Center.

"It was never the intention of the Dream Center that Mr. Haggard would provide any counsel or other ministry," said the overseers in their statement.

Haggard will not be doing any ministry and instead will be seeking secular employment to support the family, according to the statement.

LINK

DAR
Update on Haggard:

Disgraced pastor returns, as Christian businessman

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer Eric Gorski, Ap Religion Writer – 18 mins ago
This image taken from video, supplied by Magnolia Pictures, shows the Rev. Ted AP – This image taken from video, supplied by Magnolia Pictures, shows the Rev. Ted Haggard preaching in …

Earlier this month, a guest took the pulpit at Open Bible Fellowship in Morrison, Ill., a 350-member church surrounded by cornfields. The speaker was an insurance salesman from Colorado named Ted Haggard.

The former superstar pastor, disgraced two years ago in a sex-and-drugs scandal, had returned — this time as a Christian businessman preaching a message that was equal parts contrition and defiance. Haggard linked his fall to being molested in second grade and apologized again.

His two sermons were posted, fleetingly, on Haggard's Web site under one word: "Alive!"

While his exact plans remain unclear, Haggard is unmistakably making himself a public figure again, nine months after his former church said he walked away from an oversight process meant to restore him.

The man who confessed to being a "a deceiver and a liar" is asking for another hearing, finding encouragement from a loyal circle of supporters, skepticism from those evangelical leaders who think it's premature and complex emotions at the Colorado Springs church he betrayed.

Haggard, 52, resigned as president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals and was fired from New Life Church amid allegations that he paid a male prostitute for sex and used methamphetamine.

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