A woman phoned me this morning and wanted to tell her story. TBM for 35 years, she was very much involved in a ten million dollar international program, headed by one of the apostles, to develop a special training program. Before the program was complete, the church was sued by two men over the program. She was one of the co-defendants, along with the apostle. She said that the church's case was ironclad, all it needed was to go to trial. She even traveled to the US to testify.

But at the last minute the church lawyers decided to settle the case so that the apostle would not have to appear in court. The settlement amount paid by the church was three million dollars.

This woman was astonished, and began to question everything about the church. She had spent half a million dollars of her own money in working on this project, and submitted invoices to the church authorities for reimbursement.

Their response? "Sorry, but we can't repay you - the Church doesn't have that much money."

She is now out of the church and called me to ask how she could get involved in the exmormon community (she hadn't even realized that there WERE "exmormons").

(I have omitted some details to avoid identifying the people involved, but she gave them to me: the name of the apostle, the location of the trial, the location of the project headquarters, etc.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2016 05:42PM by RPackham.

Evil b@stards.

I wouldn't trust the Mormon church to reimburse me for lunch money. I can understand why this woman lost trust in the church.

summer Wrote:
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> I wouldn't trust the Mormon church to reimburse me
> for lunch money. I can understand why this woman
> lost trust in the church.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXACTLY ! I wouldn't, either. The church won't help diddly squat. ( Unless, of course, it makes them look all holier than thou & they can BRAG about it at General Conference.) A$$holes!

Wow...

This in spite of rolling in money. That's despicable.

Even if your story was factually accurate its only important IF the president of the Church tells us that we need to worry and think about it at all. That's because the definition of Truth is whatever the prophet says. You too Mr. Packham can bask in the joy of the Truth if you will come back to church. Of course you will have to fork over 10% of your gross income, clean the toilets, and be treated like a turd. However you'll have fire insurance backed by the good faith and knowledge of the Church's truthfulness which means that if you are exalted then you'll have an email inbox of prayers that numbers in the trillions every day that you'll need to keep up-to-date in order that your heavenly children don't feel like you, their heavenly daddy, isn't an a**hole.

I have a testimony in Honest TBM.

The message from the leaders all my life was the church was poor. I learned from RFM how rich TSCC really is. The "not enough money to reimburse you" would only work for a TBM they still control. If she sues, the church will most likely settle so the dear apostle won't have to testify how much money the church really has.

I hope she just doesn't give up. There has to be a lawyer somewhere ,who specializes in this type of thing.In fact a lot of lawyers do.
The church probably does a pro job of hiding evidence or writing certain things off as something else. Hope she gets her investment back , because of the way everything turned out.
The church might not want their dirty laundry out in the open.
We all welcome her here, the more, the merrier and the more prove to the outside world, since our numbers are growing, and none of us are contradicting each other on any statements.
I didn't know of the ex Mormon community either , until I found this site. It cleared up a lot of things in the church for me that I didn't understand. Now, it seems like members are janitors too.

Since the case is "settled" and she is out of the church can we have more specifics?

Gatorman
3-0



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2016 06:47PM by gatorman.

The money part is despicable, of course.

What also concerns me is her surprise that a community of ex-mormons exists. (Hockey Rat alluded to this, too.) I think it behooves all of us to be as proactive as possible alerting doubting Mormons, solitary ex-mormons and non-Mormons curious about the church to the presence of this site, that other site that some of us may have redd, the CES letter, mormonthink, and all the other resources.

I'm super vocal about the ex Mormon community! I direct everyone to it! I mention stuff on Facebook and Instagram all the time. I figure all the energy I gave providing missionary work for the church, should now be focused on missionary work against the church. ;)

I keep hearing that the church does not have the big money but if you drive around BYU campus today you will be blown out of your car seat by the amount of new and just completed projects the tscc has funded.IMO..

300 Million is probably a low estimate in my estimation and I was in the commercial construction business for half my adult life.
I also solicited business from BYU and they never ran out of money for projects. they got plenty of cash!!

just sayin.. I'm not seeing it yet..

as I understand from other boards 140 million was spent on the provo temple. I should research the public building permit taken out for it to verify.

140 million? I can't even imagine how much that is. I toured it... not impressed. modernized woodwork that didn't quite look authentic to the period, proportions were all off everywhere not aesthetically pleasing as it should have been. I know a rain forest must have been cut down for the building. They raid those south american forests and hire sweat shop Indian labor to carve the peaches. They should have hired a real architect and designer to get it right.

Let's not forget about that high-end mall the church created. I believe it's called the City Creek Mall? I hear that it cost TSCC a pretty penny.

I went to Utah in 2009. I hadn't been there for at least 20 years. By the time I left, I was pissed.

I saw them tearing down better church's than the one I was going to. I saw money money money being spent everywhere by the church. I sure as hell didn't see any of this where I lived in the PNW.

Yeah there was the ugly Seattle temple that's outdated and all done up in pale yellow. There's the raggedy church I went to that looked and smelled bad, especially once they ditched the janitors. That was about it. Oh yeah, the cookie cutter stake center that also has a funky smell and is looked raggedy.

All my life I was told by church leaders that there wasn't money to do___________. Fill in the blank, there was never enough money. It was all about pinching pennies for a corporation that's stinking rich. It's disgusting. No money for the poor, the kids, families, church functions, etc. It got so bad that I refused to do anything that involved money. I knew i'd be the one footing the bill. No way. I wasn't going to buy the ward Christmas dinner, send girls to camp, pay for scouting, etc. etc.

I was a bit pissed when stepson went on a mission. All the money we'd put out, I felt like they should be paying us for the use of our child. He really wanted to go, so we bit the bullet and paid his way. I regret that.

The good news is that I left the church forever in 2011.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2016 10:33PM by madalice.

Why doesn't she just sue the church, the same apostle, and the program director?

It seems they would be willing to avoid a public lawsuit.

Can we sue for getting I appropriately touched during the initiatory?

RR Wrote:
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> Why doesn't she just sue the church, the same apostle, and the program director?
>
> It seems they would be willing to avoid a public lawsuit.

She is still considering suing the church for reimbursement, but for various reasons (partly geographical) has not done so. Because that is still a possibility, I won't divulge any details. (Sorry, Gatorman!)


> Can we sue for getting I appropriately touched during the initiatory?

I am guessing that you mean INappropriately?
I know of one man who did so, in 2004, and even filed a police report. The church settled for (IIRC) $25,000 and a requirement that none of the details of the case, including the settlement, be made public. The man believes that his case was the primary stimulus for the church's change in the initiatories in 2005, which did away with all the touching except on the top of the head.

You personally are probably unable to sue, since if you were touched inappropriately, it would have been over ten years ago, and I suspect the statute of limitations would be a bar. But you should consult an attorney.

I think she's in good counsel with Bro Packham. The whole point is to be as public as possible to capitalize on the media's distaste for bigotry. Go big and hand the church's nuts to them before they even know they're missing.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the church about my reimbursement request for my tithing over the last 20 years. Still nothing. But I have hope they will get back to me. Anytime now...

just plain dishonest. thievery. liars. evil.

There's a certain guy who's getting a lot of press these days who also uses the "Sorry, but we can't pay you - we don't have that much money" tactic.

Lawyers only settle a case without going to court to not only save face, but to save money. The 3m the church paid out to the defendants is likely far less than the sum total it would've cost the church to have gone to litigation.

That is typically the reason for settling pre-trial.

The woman got the shaft totally. She should sue to recoup her costs. Or threaten to sue. The church may want to settle with her to avoid similar threat of litigation it just did with the other defendants.

Lawyers don't settle a case until ordered to do so by their clients. And there are still some clients who argue that in the long run, "Pennies for Defense and Million$ for Tribute" is a bad idea and so they do the "Million$ for Defense and Pennies for Tribute."

As the story is told, the church's position was solid and the expectation was for a favorable judgment, but that rather than have an afossil be exposed to cross-examination and other assorted inconvenience, they opted to pay three million dollars. That's a heck of a lot of money, and certainly about $2,750,000 more than the cost of defending the case.

We don't know the amount of the damages claimed, nor if the figure claimed was reasonable.

What Richard's story leaves us with is the likelihood that three million dollars is just chump change to the church and that it was worth paying to keep an apostle from being inconvenienced.

I am eagerly awaiting further developments.

Does the lady speak German?

I honestly believe that most TBM's believe that the church is a humble, thrifty operation that "just gets by" with donations and uses money wisely; if it is pointed that the church is obviously a multi-billion dollar corporation, the TBM will switch gears instantly and say "Good for them, they deserve it, they need the money for programs and helping people."

If you ask: "Well, which is it?", they'll bear their testimony.

Wow. What a story.

I'm glad she reached out to you.

No doubt she will be shocked when she comprehends just how many things within the church are not what she thought.

I hope she reads about the Mark Hofmann story and the shenanigans they pulled to keep the profit out of the court limelight.

I hope she studies and sees the scope of what she experienced is well beyond one apostle and project.

Good luck to her and congratulations to her for calling them on it. I hope she gets her money back too.

I smell a non-disclosure agreement coming.

No they don't have the money. If the Mormon church actually did charity work in its communitys it would have no money for all of its commercial ventures.

weird that she did not know that theere were no exmormons. More than 2/3 of the church is exmormon.

I was surprised when I found out that there were organized exmormon forums and communities. Of course I knew that the majority of the members were "inactive." But not that they got together and talked and helped each other.

"More than 2/3 of the church is exmormon."

That should be a billboard!

They figured that, being a woman and all, she would just bow her head and accept their bilking her out of the money. She just doesn't know her place. (sarcasm?)

Some people need to learn from 'personal experience' ---- I think she got it now!

If I were this woman I would tell TSCC HQ that I am willing to get reimbursed in-kind and take in payment partial deed to the acres of ranch land they own in Florida or the forest land they just bought. Or name a recently closed ward meeting house. And give specifics in terms of assessed value of those lands. That should hammer home to the pinheads how little the request is relative to their net worth.