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Televangelist Buys Private Jet After Receiving $3.9 Million In PPP Taxpayer Money [I Religion]

[b]Gullible rubes fleeced once again by crooked preacher
[/b]
PATHEOS.COM, December 13, 2020 BY MICHAEL STONE

[b]Scamvangelist[/b]: [b]Televangelist Marcus Lamb bought a multi-million dollar jet after receiving 3.9 million dollars from the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), money meant to use to pay employees.
[/b]
Inside Edition reports:

Marcus Lamb is the leader of one of the world’s largest religious networks and the tax exempt church, Daystar Television. When the pandemic hit, Daystar TV applied for the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to help pay its employees, and received $3.9 million. Two weeks after the loan was approved, the church bought a multi-million dollar jet.

According to the report, Lamb claims the jet was bought with proceeds from the sale of its old jet, and not the 3.9 million dollars in PPP loan money.

Commenting on the story, Pete Evans is an investigator with the Trinity Foundation, a church watchdog group, told Inside Edition:

They got millions of dollars from the government and then they spent millions of dollars on a private jet. It just looks bad.

Inside Edition Chief Investigative Correspondent Lisa Guerrero asked Lamb about the purchase of the multi-million dollar jet after receiving millions in taxpayer money:

[i]Your church received millions of dollars in taxpayer money, and two weeks later bought a private jet for millions of dollars. Can you explain that?[/i]

After Lamb refused to answer, Guerrero continued:

[i]Did you use taxpayer money to buy a private jet?[/i]

At that point a defensive Lamb declared:

N[i]o we did not — used our own money[/i]

Guerrero continued:

T[i]hen what are you using that private jet for? Church business only?[/i]

Lamb replied:

[i]Absolutely.[/i]

After being asked about his wife’s social media posts talking about using the private jet for a family vacation, Lamb said:

[i]We did have a vacation but also did several meetings with ministers while we were there.[/i]

The good news: After being caught by Inside Edition, Lamb and his Daystar Television repaid the entire 3.9 million dollars in PPP loan money, with interest.
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badminton · 61-69, MVIP
@Ynotisay The original idea was that since churches do charitable work, run soup kitchens for the poor, etc. they should be tax exempt. This attracted many swindlers who wanted to take advantage of the tax exempt status to cheat simple rubes. So the conmen became "pastors', waved a bible around and promised a ticket to heaven to the rubes if they part with their money. So it has been lo these many years.
Ynotisay · M
@badminton My understanding is that taxpayers subsidize churches to the tune of about $80B a year. And church leaders are tax exempt for a lot of things. If it's some town church holding dances and feeding people...whatever. But when megachurches are pulling in countless millions...nope. All kinds of wrong.

 
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