scandal

Did Eddie Long Also Help His Church Members Lose Their Homes?

Eddie Long just can’t catch a break. He’s once again behind closed doors with the four men accusing him of sex crimes. And now he’s facing the on-going investigation from the Secret Service that he’s a mortgage fraudster. Forget credit default swaps: One of God’s men brought down America’s housing industry!

I exaggerate, of course, but if you’re one of those folks now facing mounting debt payments and the loss of your house, guess who you might have to thank? Rolling Out relays:

The feds accuse the pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta of facilitating a corrupt mortgage scheme within his church. Matrix Capitol Mortgage Company and its front man, Fred Lee, held mortgage payment seminars at New Birth, promising to lower homeowners’ notes. That did not happen. Instead, many of them lost their homes to foreclosure. A large percentage of those former homeowners also happened to be members of Long’s church.

CBS Atlanta reports that “people trusted Lee because he made the promises of lowering their mortgages in the sanctity of their own church.” Every Wednesday night, Lee would come to New Birth and collect money for the mortgages after he convinced people to pay him instead of their mortgage companies.

Lee didn’t necessarily host the seminars at the church personally; someone else from Matrix Capitol Mortgage Company would, the media reports.

And that’s not the only investigation Long is involved in, although the one looking into the break-in at his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church office makes Long out to be the victim of Maurice Robinson and Anthony Boyd’s alleged robbery; the two men later accused Long of sexual misconduct, and it’s likely their supposed crime was an attempt to gather evidence against Long.

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