Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Mosakowski got in the last word before jurors in the conspiracy, money laundering and fraud trial of five ministry elders began deliberating. The church's money-doubling financial program was a fraud built upon lies and semantic tricks, Mosakowski said. Investments were called gifts and profits called blessings.
Jurors have dozens of monthly statements that participants received showing payment schedules.
That proves that the funds coming into the ministry weren't gifts and that there were set payment schedules, he said. Defense attorneys say the group believed the program was legitimate, based on legal advice and founder Gerald Payne's claims that they had lucrative international trades and mining ventures to finance the program. Payne controlled the business ventures, defense attorneys say. Hall is a lifetime preacher who believed in the Scripture at the center of the Greater Ministries Faith Promises Program. And he acted out of his deep religious faith when he was there, which manifested itself in his confidence in what Payne told him about church investments.