Tears and hugs were abundant among members of Second Baptist Church in Starkville on Wednesday afternoon.
The 12-day trial for a five-year lawsuit in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court ended with financial penalties against Pastor Joseph Stone and Head Deacon Terry Miller, after the jury found them responsible for negotiating a May 2013 contract with Long Beach-based TCM Construction to build a new sanctuary without the church’s board of trustees’ approval and withholding money collected through church offerings from the trustees.
The unanimous verdict settled a dispute over the failed building project that created a deep rift within the Second Baptist congregation over almost a decade.
“I feel relieved,” said Bennie Hairston, chairman of the board of trustees. “We’ve been going through this for five years … and so much has happened. I feel like a big burden has been lifted.
“I’ve been threatened (for) doing my trustee duty as far as standing up for the church and fighting for the church,” he added. “I still stayed there because I know this is what I’m supposed to do.”
The trustees paid TCM’s owner, Donald Crowther, more than $454,000 for the work he was supposed to do, but all that was ever completed was preliminary dirt work and the project has not been touched since 2015. Crowther has since pleaded guilty in criminal court to fraud for submitting false invoices, and he is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 13.
The jury found Stone and Miller responsible for breach of fiduciary duty, meaning they violated their responsibility to act in the best interest of the church when handling its finances, and conspiracy to cover up this behavior.
Stone admitted to altering the signature page on the contract with TCM so it only required a signature from one trustee instead of the entire board. He pushed for the project to move forward after Starkville attorney Russ Rogers called the contract’s validity into question, and he and Miller sidestepped the church’s treasurer to make regular payments to Crowther despite the lack of work done on the project.
Stone told the church the project had received a bank loan, when in reality it had received a loan commitment letter that expired in 2013, and the church received no money from the bank.
The jury also found Stone responsible for unjust enrichment after he ordered Miller and other deacons to hold onto money collected during church offerings instead of giving it directly to the church’s finance committee. Deacons opened two bank accounts in July 2017, even though the church’s constitution states that business and financial matters are outside the deacons’ purview.
Miller and Stone were ordered to pay a combined $500,000 in damages to the church for conspiracy and breach of fiduciary duty, and Stone will pay an additional $30,000 in damages for unjust enrichment.
Stone and Miller claimed on the witness stand last week everything they did was the will of the majority of the congregation, but plaintiffs and other witnesses claimed Stone would publicly vilify anyone who disagreed with him, creating a culture of intimidation.
Stone attempted in December 2015, after the lawsuit was filed, to defy an order from Judge Jim Kitchens not to make changes to the board of trustees. The plaintiffs’ attorneys showed a video on Oct. 27, in which Stone is shown proposing a church vote to remove the entire trustees board at a church meeting.
William Starks, Stone’s and Miller’s Columbus-based defense attorney, told the jury in his closing argument that he believed a minority of congregants were using the suit to remove the two leaders from their positions. He maintained that Crowther should have been a defendant in the trial, as he originally was before settling a second civil suit, solely against TCM, for $280,000 in October.
“Who were the damages caused by — the contractor who defrauded the church and pleaded guilty, or two men who have devoted their lives to serving the church?” Starks said. “We know the answer.”
Dorsey Carson, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, rejected the idea the goal of the trial was to place blame for the failure of the building project.
“Who is not to blame for this are all the people that were lied to, including the church, the trustees (and) the treasurer,” Carson said in his final argument. “One thing has been clear from the outset, and that’s that everybody was lied to.”
Starks could not be reached for comment after the trial. Carson said he believed the jury’s verdict “is the first step in rebuilding Second Baptist Church into the church it once was and the church it’s meant to be.”
Charles Ware, an adviser and spokesman for the trustees, agreed and said the work is far from over.
“We’ve got to do a lot of work administratively,” Ware said. “If (Stone) were any kind of man, he’d leave.”
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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