Taft spokesman Kevin Kellems could not be reached for comment Sunday night. A message was left for him on his pager. Two supporters of a newsletter that urged subscribers to drop their health insurance and donate money to pay each other's medical bills now are accusing the group's administrators of skimming money to pay for extravagant homes and airplanes while millions of dollars in subscriber bills go unpaid. Legal battles against the newsletter often were unsuccessful because none of the subscribers ever complained. Attorney General Betty Montgomery filed a lawsuit against Hawthorn Dec. 11.
Allegations range from financial fraud to having an exotic dancer on the payroll.
Richard Lupton, a Virginia pastor, is a former newsletter trustee who helped Montgomery's office in its lawsuit. On Dec. 6, Hawthorn changed the office locks and kicked Lupton and another former trustee, Howard Russell, out of the organization. The pair went straight to the attorney general's office to turn in Hawthorn. They said they went to Montgomery because the newsletter's founder was corrupted along the way by his own success, and they were morally obligated to protect the subscribers. Also at issue was a plan to create a newsletter escrow account which would replace the practice of subscribers sending money directly to one another for medical bills.