By Tiffany Y. Latta
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
LEBANON — A Middletown pastor accused of using his personal account and his church to launder drug money pleaded guilty Monday to two felonies.
Keith L. Brooks, 52, bishop and founder of Power of Deliverance Temple/Judah Sanctuary of Praise on Crawford Street in Middletown, pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity and two counts of money laundering.
He faces 10 years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 16.
Defense attorney Kenneth Lawson of Cincinnati said his client is innocent and only pleaded guilty because prosecutors threatened to file charges against his wife and the church.
"He believes it was in his best interest to get this over with and that this was the best way to resolve this," Lawson said.
Warren County prosecutors dismissed 43 of 45 counts of money laundering against Brooks, of 4412 Brandon Lane.
Prosecutors said Brooks rented a home at 280 W. Pekin Road in Clearcreek Twp. to James Scott — a member of his congregation and a convicted cocaine dealer who has been eluding police for a year — for about three years at $2,000 a month. The counts against Brooks represent the number of times Scott is alleged to have paid him rent using drug money.
A county grand jury in October indicted Brooks after the Warren County Drug Task Force began investigating Scott for drug activity in 2004 and reported they seized $46,000 from a safe and 11 pounds of crack cocaine from the house he rented from Brooks.
Scott was free in lieu of a $50,000 bond during his trial when he ran off. At the time, a jury was deliberating nine counts of drug trafficking and drug possession (powder and crack cocaine) against him.
Toby Morris, 67, of Middletown, who has known Brooks about seven years, said the pastor is a good man.
"The only thing he's guilty of is trusting people too much," Morris said.
John Burke, drug task force commander, said Brooks and his church have helped people legally, but made a different arrangement with Scott.
Burke said Brooks purchased the home with his own money and had Scott help him pay the mortgage with drug money.
"It would be nice to say that he was trying to help somebody, but that is simply not the case," Burke said.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2007/01/08/ddn010907brooks.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment