A three-year investigation into financial improprieties at six Christian ministries whose television preaching bankrolled leaders’ lavish lifestyles has concluded with the formation of an independent commission to look into the lack of accountability by tax-exempt religious groups.

The investigation report issued this week details the ministries’ luxury homes and cars, trips on private jets and expensive gifts, including two Rolls Royces that a third party reported was given to the Dollars as a gift from the church.

The first-degree murder trial of Christopher Coleman, accused of strangling his wife and two young sons, has been postponed until next year. The delay came after a flurry of defense motions was filed Friday, most of which concerned the state of Louisiana’s death penalty.

Coleman is the 33-year-old former head of security for Joyce Meyer Ministries in Missouri.

Police documents state that Coleman, who is in the Monroe County Jail without bail, wanted to divorce Sheri Coleman and marry his girlfriend, Tara Lintz, a Florida dog track waitress, was a high school friend of Sheri Coleman’s.

Christopher Coleman was the personal bodyguard for Meyer.

The Joyce Meyer Ministries did too little to prevent its security manager, Christopher Coleman, from allegedly murdering his wife and two sons, according to an addition filed Monday to a wrongful-death lawsuit.

Coleman, who traveled throughout the world by Meyer’s side, was fired about a week after the killings, when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch disclosed the affair.

Media-based televangelists benefiting from tax code exemptions are warned — Sen. Chuck Grassley is a terrier-like congressional inquisitor with time and a big stick on his side.

“I am not threatening them, at this point,” the Iowa Republican said.

The St. Louis Dream Center, an arm of the Joyce Meyer Ministries, settled a wrongful death suit Friday with the parents of DeAndre Sherman, one of five children who drowned in 2006 at Castlewood State Park.

Only two of six Christian ministries under scrutiny for allegations of opulent spending turned over documents to a Senate panel by a Thursday deadline, with others either fighting the request or asking for more time.

Four televangelists, under investigation for the way they raise and spend money, did not turn over financial information by Thursday, the deadline set by the Senate Finance Committee, including one preacher who challenged the committee to subpoena him.

Joyce Meyer Ministries said Wednesday it is fully cooperating with a U.S. senator’s investigation into its finances and is confident the inquiry will show the popular Fenton-based TV evangelist is in “complete compliance” with the law.

Among other things, the senator wants to know the tax-exempt purpose of items purchased for her ministry’s headquarters, such as a $23,000 marble-topped commode, a $30,000 conference table and an $11,219 French clock.

ST. LOUIS - The mother of one of the five children who drowned last month during a church outing to an eastern Missouri state park has sued the church and Joyce Meyer Ministries, claiming negligence and inadequate supervision.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Investigators said Tuesday they expect no charges to be filed in the river drownings of five children on a weekend church outing in eastern Missouri, calling it an accident.

BALLWIN, Mo. | - BALLWIN, Mo. | Five youngsters — four of them siblings — drowned in a river during a church outing after one became caught in the undertow and the others jumped in to help, authorities said Monday.

The three main parties in a tax dispute involving the headquarters of Joyce Meyer Ministries say they are satisfied with the settlement of the issue, which will boost tax revenue in the Northwest School District.

Joyce Meyer Ministries has agreed to pay a little more than half the taxes on its $20 million headquarters in Fenton, ending a dispute between the ministry and Jefferson County officials.

NEW YORK A St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter whose stories about a local ministry were the subject of a lengthy correction last week has been suspended for five days, her attorney told E&P.