This is the same news as I reported yesterday but with a twist. The organization which funnels money from all over the world to India — Gospel for Asia — is at the center of two racketeering and fraud lawsuits brought by former donors in Arkansas. The founder of GFA and Believers’ Church in India (the main recipient of GFA’s funds) — K.P. Yohannan — is a defendant in the lawsuits. So is his wife and son. One of those suits was cleared by a federal judge to proceed with discovery and to hold a jury trial slated for April 15, 2019.
This is actually bigger news in India than in the U.S.
Despite being the second largest mission organization in the nation, GFA isn’t well known in the U.S. However, in India, Yohannan is a rock star. He has met with the prime minister, regularly entertains politicians, and is the temporal and spiritual head of Believers’ Church, which owns billions of dollars in assets and claims over 2 million members. Think of the most famous religious figure in the U.S., and K.P. Yohannan is a comparable figure in India.
On church publications, Yohannan goes by His Eminence the Most Rev. Dr. K.P. Yohannan.
Yohannan’s religious empire includes over a dozen secondary schools, a medical school, an engineering school, a finance company, a soccer team, three hospitals, and a broadcasting company. Most of these ventures are for profit. Unless the parties settle out of court, Yohannan will no doubt be put on the witness stand in Arkansas and forced to answer questions about money smurfing American cash to India, a $20-million transfer from an Indian affiliate to complete construction of the American headquarters, funds not showing up in reports, board members being forced out in Canada and a host of other issues.
Tag: Gospel for Asia
Federal Judge Sets 2019 Trial Date for Fraud Case Against Gospel for Asia
Today, a federal judge in Western Arkansas ruled that one of the fraud and racketeering cases against Gospel for Asia will go to trial in 2019. U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks set the date for a jury trial on April 15, 2019.
Despite numerous legal maneuvers by GFA’s lawyers, the Murphy RICO case will move ahead. This is a significant win for the plaintiffs since GFA has tried on multiple occasions to have this and another case thrown out. The earlier case involving another Arkansas couple, Matthew and Jennifer Dickson, has been stayed pending an appeal by GFA.
Read the scheduling order here.
The 10 page order in Murphy and Murphy v. Gospel for Asia sets the dates for discovery throughout the remainder of this year and 2018:
1. TRIAL SET FOR APRIL 15, 2019
The trial of this matter is scheduled for a three to four week JURY TRIAL in FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS, beginning on APRIL 15, 2019, at 9:00 a.m. The case will be tried to an nine (9) person jury–unanimous verdict required. Counsel are directed to report to the Fifth-floor Courtroom by no later than 8:30 a.m. on the first day of trial unless otherwise notified.
2. FINAL PRE-TRIAL CONFERENCE
A Final Pre-Trial Conference shall be conducted pursuant to the provisions of Rule 16(e) on APRIL 2, 2019, beginning at 9:00 a.m.
3. AMENDMENT OF PLEADINGS
Leave to amend pleadings and/or to add or substitute parties shall be sought no later than OCTOBER 19, 2017.
4. EXPERT DISCLOSURES
(a) Class Expert Witnesses Plaintiffs’ deadline to provide disclosures and written reports for class experts pursuant to Rule 26(a)(2) is OCTOBER 15, 2017. Defendants’ deadline to provide class expert witness disclosures and written reports pursuant to Rule 26(a)(2) is NOVEMBER 30, 2017. The deadline to provide disclosures and reports of rebuttal experts (i.e. whose testimony will be offered solely to contradict or rebut the expert opinions offered by an opposing class expert) is DECEMBER 15, 2017. (b) Merit Expert Witnesses Plaintiffs’ deadline to provide disclosures and written reports for merit experts pursuant to Rule 26(a)(2) is AUGUST 31, 2018. Defendants’ deadline to provide expert merit witness disclosures and written reports pursuant to Rule 26(a)(2) is OCTOBER 5, 2018. The deadline to provide disclosures and reports of rebuttal experts (i.e. whose testimony will be offered solely to contradict or rebut the expert opinions offered by an opposing merit expert) is OCTOBER 19, 2018.
5. DISCOVERY
The scope of discovery may include both class and merits discovery. That said, discovery which clearly has no purpose other than for merits issues should be deferred until after the Court rules on class certification. The discovery deadline is NOVEMBER 16, 2018. The parties may conduct discovery beyond this date if all parties are in agreement to do so. To avoid later misunderstandings, such agreements should be reduced to a writing which describes the type, scope, and length of the extended period of discovery. That said, the Court will not resolve any disputes which may arise in the course of extended discovery. All discovery requests must be propounded sufficiently in advance of the discovery deadline to allow for a timely response. Witnesses and exhibits not identified and produced in response to Rule 26(a)(1) Initial Disclosures, and/or in response to subsequent discovery requests, may not be used at trial except in extraordinary circumstances. The Court will not grant a continuance because a party does not have time in which to depose a lay or expert witness.
6. MOTIONS DEADLINES (a) Class Certification Motions: The deadline to file class certification motions is JANUARY 19, 2018. < Responses to class certification motions are due not later than six (6) weeks after the motion is filed. < Replies are due not later than three (3) weeks after the response is filed.
A settlement hearing was scheduled for January 31, 2019 in the event that the parties decide to settle.
ORDER SETTING SETTLEMENT CONFERENCE
This case has been referred to the undersigned for a settlement conference. All parties and their lead counsel are hereby ORDERED TO APPEAR before the undersigned at the U. S. Federal Building, 35 E. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas, in Room 210 at 9:00 A.M. on January 31, 2019. All participating attorneys must be of record. An insured party shall appear by a representative of the insurer with the complete authority to agree to a settlement up to the policy limits. An uninsured corporate party shall appear by a representative authorized to agree to a settlement. If a public entity is a party, all of the members of the board of the public entity, or a quorum of the entity, who have complete authority to agree to a settlement–or a representative given such authority by the board members–shall appear. The complete authority to agree to a settlement means that the representative must have the authority to make an independent assessment of the value of the case and proposed settlement terms as the settlement discussions proceed. Each party shall, before arriving at the settlement conference, ascertain in good faith the best settlement proposal that such party can make and be prepared, if asked by the undersigned, to communicate that settlement proposal to the under-signed in confidence. If no settlement discussions have taken place, the court encourages an exchange of demands and offers prior to the settlement conference.
K.P. Yohannan and his co-defendants will need to be in attendance for this conference.
GFA must now submit to scrutiny that the organization has been resisting. GFA has not published an audited financial statement since FY 2013 and lost membership with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability in October, 2015.
I believe the GFA action is one of the largest evangelical charities to face a lawsuit of this kind.
Gospel for Asia Tops India's List of Foreign Donation Recipients for FY 2016
A March 20 article in the Times of India puts focus on just how much money pours into India via the mega mission organization Gospel for Asia. A companion piece on Believers’ Church features K.P. Yohannan again saying he has no legal standing in any of his organizations. His own church Constitution seems to contradict this statement.
According to the ToI article, Ayana Charitable Trust (Gospel for Asia’s new name in India) took in $126,376,000 (Rs 8.26 billion). Much of that came from Ayana’s Hong Kong bank accounts. Because of this infusion of cash from their Hong Kong bank, it is hard to know the impact of GFA’s fall from respectability over the past year.
Believers’ Church recorded $128,824,000 in donations although $76.5 million came from “foreign funding from local sources.” While it is hard to know what this means in the case of Believers’ Church, presumably some of these funds are interest payments on the massive bank accounts owned by Believers’ Church. Since the Times article didn’t track all of the NGOs controlled by GFA, it is also possible that shell NGOs like Love India Ministries gave money to Believers’ Church which originally came from GFA in the U.S. or Canada.
Combining the two mega charities, Gospel for Asia’s Indian partners declared $255,200,000 in revenues for FY 2016 alone. According to the articles, all of the entities affiliated with GFA and Believers’ Church have $366,735,000 just sitting in bank accounts. GFA founder K.P. Yohannan boasts of the outreach conducted by his group. However, with the funds available to them, GFA could do significantly more than they do now.
Yohannan told the ToI that he does not head up any organizations.
When questioned whether he is personally heading these organizations, Yohannan said: “I don’t hold legal positions in any of them. We have in our church, councils and committees of 22 bishops that run these trusts.”
However, as I have reported before, Yohannan is the supreme authority over spiritual and temporal matters for Believers’ Church according to the church Constitution. He also heads the boards of at least some of the schools and the Bridge of Hope and is considered the benefactor of Believers’ Church Medical Center.
In October of 2015, GFA’s membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability was revoked due to multiple infractions of ECFA’s financial standards.
K.P. Yohannan Ordains 12 New Bishops Including Son and Gospel for Asia Board Member Daniel Punnoose
On March 2, Daniel Punnoose, the son of Gospel for Asia founder and Believers’ Church Metropolitan K.P. Yohannan, was confirmed as a Bishop in the Believers’ Church in India. This sets the stage for Yohannan to turn over the GFA empire to Punnoose when Yohannan decides to retire.
Gospel for Asia is being sued by former donors who claim that GFA engaged in fraud and misuse of funds.
Metropolitan K.P. Yohannan
New RICO Suit Brought Against Gospel for Asia
I reported earlier this week that Garland and Phyllis Murphy, former Gospel for Asia donors filed a motion to join the RICO lawsuit initiated by Matthew and Jennifer Dickson. A separate suit was filed yesterday by the Murphys.
Read the Murphys’ complaint here.
The complaint is similar to the one filed by the Dicksons but has a separate case number from Dickson’s case and follows a motion to withdraw the earlier request to join the Dickson’s case.
Plaintiffs’ Motion to Withdraw Proposed Intervention Motion
Plaintiffs respectfully move the Court to withdraw the motion to intervene [Doc. 48] filed on February 6, 2017. The proposed intervenors, Garland D. Murphy, III, M.D. and Phyllis A. Murphy, filed an independent but related action on February 16, 2017 which was assigned Case No. 5:17-cv-05035-TLB. Defendants do not oppose this motion to withdraw.
So now GFA is defending itself against two RICO lawsuits with the potential for others to join the existing classes or for additional suits to be filed.