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Witness: I’m now bankrupt
Pastor says he let faith carry him past doubts about Abraham Kennard’s program.
Two years ago, Pastor Billy Brooks was sure that God wanted him to join Network International Investment Corporation. But when the windfall of money he was promised never came, he told federal prosecutors Thursday, things changed.
In 2001, Brooks said he took out a loan on his car and used his credit cards to pay NIIC $9,000 in membership fees. Abraham Kennard, NIIC president and chief executive officer, promised Brooks that money flowing into the company from private investors would ensure he’d get more than $6 million back.
Kennard is now on trial for allegedly swindling about $9 million from 1,600 nonprofit organizations and churches — including Brooks’ 12-member church in Smyrna, Tenn. — in 41 states.
Brooks, testifying for prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Rome on Thursday, said he understood back in 2001 and 2002 that profits from the 50 Christian resorts that NIIC was building in every state would mean even more money for members of the company’s “Church Funding Project.”
What he learned later, he said, was that there were no resorts and no investors — and therefore no money to claim on behalf of his struggling congregation.
“I believed (Kennard), in spite of some things in my head,” Brooks told the court, explaining that emotions overtook rationality when Kennard and his associates pitched the idea to him in late 2001.
“I dispelled (any doubts), because this was based on faith,” he explained. “When you come at preachers with the concept of believing, you don’t have to see (any proof).”
Kennard, facing charges of mail fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering and income tax evasion, argues that his intention was always to find investors and pay members — $500,000 for every $3,000 paid upfront in membership fees — because he always maintained faith that God would make it happen.
But Brooks says he never received $6 million from NIIC. He never even received the full $20,000 that Kennard presented to him on a large cardboard check at an NIIC meeting.
Brooks maintains his faith in God, but not his faith that God was behind the NIIC as Kennard has claimed. “Anytime God’s in something, it goes all the way through,” he said.
Brooks testified that during his membership he ended up signing off for six cars in NIIC’s name — five Cadillac Escalades worth between $56,700 and $86,900 and a Mercedes Benz Roadster worth $110,600 — that he couldn’t afford, all because Kennard believed his associates should “look prosperous.”
Today, the cars are gone; Brooks’ credit rating is ruined; and he has had to file for bankruptcy.
“While you were happy, I was miserable,” Brooks told Kennard while the defendant, who has elected to represent himself during trial, cross-examined him.
Kennard’s choice to serve as his own attorney pleased trial spectator Sheila Gates. Gates, who represented herself to reporters on Wednesday simply as a Milwaukee evangelist, revealed to the Rome News-Tribune on Thursday that she has an even more personal connection to the case — she is Kennard’s aunt and co-defendant Jannie Trammel’s mother.
“I think it’s great,” Gates said of Kennard’s performance in court Thursday. “This way, the jury can see his whole heart and his whole personality instead of just having the U.S. attorney asking him questions.”
Prosecutors this morning will resume questioning of Bishop William Robbins, one of Kennard’s NIIC affiliates.
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