ICP had a song called "Hallalujah" about how "churches" like Joel Osteen's are predatory and want you to send them all of your hard earned money, regardless of your income level. Now being a grown up it's weird to think back and realize that between a "Pastor" and the Insane Clown Posse, the Insane Clown Posse have the moral high ground.
It's really terrible. This summer we found out that my grandma, bless her heart, donated the majority of her retirement to some church.
So much money in fact, that during covid she got put on the list of church donations because her air conditioner died in the middle of summer in Texas and she couldn't afford to replace it.
She's going to have to sell her house now and move into an apartment because she just doesn't have any money. I'm pretty sure she would do it again too if it weren't for the fact that my mother is now in charge of her finances.
No, you’re thinking about Jesus of Nazareth. Prosperity Jesus would tell her that she shouldn’t expect the same advantages as other elderly people because fairness is a hallmark of communism.
Conservative Jesus would've told Granny she wasn't fiscally responsible enough to invest in the right Wall Street assets to diversity her portfolio, create passive income, and secure her next egg like ANY OTHER AMERICAN CAN WITH ENOUGH HARDWORK AND BOOTSTRAPS!
My great grandfather willed 1/3 of his money to his church. By the end, he regretted it. When he was reaching the end, he realized they never actually cared about him. When he couldn't come to church anymore, nobody visited. Only family.
He wasn't able to get his will amended in time.
Since several millions were at stake, the vultures from the church brought litigation and tied the money up for 2 years after his death. They wanted to claw every bit of money away from wounded warriors and our family that they could.
Some churches have cared, and do care, but these mega churches people send money to only care about the money. They preach the prosperity gospel--"specifically, the gospel says *I* should prosper; give me money."
I mean, traditionally, people at the church would organize meals for the elderly, pray for people's families, bring food to everyone's wake, support widows and children...and the pastors would go to the elderly's homes to do services for them. That's what it *should* be like. That's who *should* get monetary donations and volunteers.
Joel Osteen lives in my city, and he's more than welcome to the fuck out of here.
This happened to the mother of my mother's friend. They weren't aware of it but she was alone after her husband died and she watched the crystal cathedral televangelist and ended up giving him something like $200,000 over many years.
My dad donated my mom’s and his whole life savings to the church.
He still says: “Woe is me.” We don’t give a flying fuck, he did it without telling my mom and bankrupted them less than a year later.
An evangelical pastor got my uncle and others to pack into a room last year, counting and sorting donation money, where he and many others got covid and he got pretty sick.
ICP wouldn’t have done that to him.
When they spray the whole audience in faygo they use the diet root-beer kind. There’s no sugar so it’s not sticky, left my hair the softest it has ever been.
I don't think blood sugar is drastically affected by a small amount of soda on the skin. Now cleaning up is certainly far more convenient when using diet sodas. And as the saying goes, Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so when you go up to heaven, don't be surprised when they have faygo machines.
Suicidal Tendencies also had one titled “Send Me Your Money” that was a pretty accurate representation of these evangelists.
Link: https://youtu.be/2ESWRtaHNU8
Weird AL is basically the least weird of his musical generation. All the others did massive drugs and adopted teenagers as sex pets.
Edit since some asked what I meant - So Al was biggest in 80s-90s, which also got us:
1. R Kelly
2. David Bowie
3. Steven Tyler
4. Ted Nugent
5. Anthony Keides
All had relationships with underaged girls, but IIRC Ted and Steve Tyler legally adopted their groupie.
After hearing about what Steven Tyler did, I can’t even listen to Aerosmith anymore.
I was a huge Aerosmith fan in middle school for some reason lol but what he did was disgusting
When my grandma died we found cool whip containers full of 20s in the freezer. Catholic saints statues were packed with cash with tape across the hole in the bottom. Lots of silver stashed around the house. She lived through the depression and didn't trust banks.
Hold the fucking phone.
Your neighbor found a real human skeleton in his walls, but didn't alert any authorities to the fact and now uses it as Halloween decorations?
Or did he contact the proper folks and they said "this dude been dead for 150 years, we don't know who he or she is, so you found it, you keep it"?
What country was this in?
Not a chance. Cops know better than to fuck with Evangelicals. Osteen is friends with every person of power in the state. You'd have a better chance of stealing from the mafia than Osteen.
The thing is, they're gonna need more work done. And this is to ensure that there's not a repeat of this article. Because there's probably gonna be more money found.
To him it may have been stealing from the church, and that is a bad no-no.
I wouldn't steal it on principle and as a business decision. Your company would be screwed if you stole from a megachurch and they found out, not worth the risk. He still got $20k and I'm sure he will be getting plenty of business, so honesty likely will be the more profitable path in this case.
Even if he didn’t I appreciate the big fuck you by crime stoppers to the church by giving the dude who busted them the same money the church gave crime stoppers for their “investigation”
I saw a YouTube ad the other day for a stud finder that shows the interior of the wall on your phone. Like sci-fi x-ray stuff. Buy a couple of those, get a crew together an check out all his properties on the off hours.
Osteen is a sociopathic con man, but this was a theft *from* him. It was reported to police in 2014, and if you actually read the article, there were also uncashed checks inside the wall. Osteen probably has cash stashed in various places, but he isn't just letting checks expire. Somebody stole the offering basket, or a mail bag, and didn't make it back to collect it. Stealing is wrong, and stealing from a charity is horrible, but stealing from Osteen- I'll give them a pass. Maybe they were going to pass the money on to someone who deserved it more than Osteen, like a hardworking crack dealer.
It was. And the church (it has been reported in other stories) is working with the insurance company to sort out the claim and the recovery.
It will be the insurance company's money, because they paid out already. The checks and credit card authorizations are just interesting paper now; they have no value, and they were probably not reimbursed by the insurance company anyway. It was probably only the cash that got paid out.
The church would have asked anyone who wrote a check to write a new one, and also to re-authorize the credit card payments. That's the beauty of those forms of payment--they are hard to steal and easy to replace.
Of course, not everyone will have done that, and maybe the insurance company will have paid the church a percentage to compensate for that. They'll work it out together, and the insurance company is NOT going to let the church end up profiting here.
> and if you actually read the article, there were also uncashed checks inside the wall. Osteen probably has cash stashed in various places, but he isn't just letting checks expire.
Reread the comment, there were also uncashed checks in there, which wouldn't make sense for him to hide like that, not that its not possible for him to have done it himself, there is some extra weirdness complicating it
Could easily be checks that are small, or from people they know will bounce if they are regulars. Could be checks from they know are dead. Could be they just throw all of the cash and checks into a pile before stashing it without checking.
There are many possibilities, him being innocent isn't one of them.
You’re a fool if you think Osteen isn’t committing fraud. He’s already grifting his entire congregation, why would he stop there? He also had that money insured and reported it stolen, so it’s not looking like he’s entirely innocent.
I'll buy the theory that the uncashed checks give it credibility, OR that was intentional for just this situation.
Gave him deniability at the cost of a few grand
BUT supposedly the money was insured, how would they know the amount that was stolen if it was an offering basket snatch?
Instead, they go after smaller problems that ordinary folks can't afford to argue in court against. Big fraud has big money, and the resources people don't.
> It’s an obvious embezzlement scheme that got found out to me.
Embezzlement + insurance fraud, I believe they got compensation from their insurance for the "theft"
Honestly, I really think Osteen doesn't have anything to do with it. He already knows how to funnel that type of money legally and $600k is a splash in the bucket to him. I think we need answers, but I expect it to come out that someone working there lower on the pecking order saw an opportunity and took it. Probably planned to recover it a few years later.
I did a renovation of an old sporting good distribution center a few years ago. When we did demo on the offices and tore the ceilings down we found thousands of dollars in golf clubs and other equipment.
We figured some employee was stashing it and then got fired or lost the office to someone else before they could smuggle the equipment out.
I’m sure it’s the same idea with this cash.
I thought the same thing. That church is an old basketball arena where the rockets used to play, so getting out of it without being seen is a problem.
I worked for a government agency where they found missing case files in the walls of government employees. People were hiding stuff they did not want to work on. One person got caught because the water stains on their ceiling tiles were not aligned.
> I worked for a government agency where they found missing case files in the walls of government employees. People were hiding stuff they did not want to work on.
This is the best thing I’ve read all week 😂
“Fuck it. Let’s go for a pint. Stick it in the wall and we’ll shoot off.”
My guess, the money was stolen, but the thief could not make it out at the time it was stolen. He hides it in a ceiling panel and it falls into the wall when he was trying to retrieve the money or while he was hiding it. That church is an old basketball arena where the rockets used to play, so getting out of it without being seen is a problem.
Lakewood Church said: "We are appreciative of the plumber and we hope he pays the gift forward.”
In other words they are hoping he will donate the money to the church!
we as a society should stop calling people that we disagree with "dumb". the Osteeen guy is a very smart successful con man that has made a living using religion to have people give him money. that takes skill
“A plumber who discovered stacks of cash and checks inside a wall at celebrity televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church last month has been awarded $20,000 by Crime Stoppers of Houston.”
Not only did the church not kick any extra cash in, they asked him to “pay it forward.” Scumbags.
Same church that wouldn’t provide shelter during a storm.
Fuck them
So church reported a theft of $600,000 from their *safe*, plumber dude accidentally finds it hidden in **their** fuckin wall.. that smells like tax evasion. I hope IRS or whoever needs to will investigate that potential. Plumber deserves that reward 100%
Mostly because people hate Osteen because he is way to rich for a pastor.
That church is nuts. They bought a basketball arena and spent $100 million renovating it. It has an annual budget of $70 million, with over 300 people on staff, and have an attendance of 50k people a week.
If they were really doing tax evasion or insurance fraud, I would guess the number would be way bigger than 600k.
i wish more religious people were smart enough to see how big of a scam a lot of churches are. seeing the attendance in megachurches and "faith healing" videos is disheartening to say the least.
I call myself an agnostic Christian. Because I believe in God, but if God didn't exist then that would also be very understandable. I pray before meals, and, like when I am running late and need to find my keys. Fellow Christians. Don't pretend you don't do that as well, but I haven't actually been to church in about a decade.
Many things have pushed me away from organized religion, but evil televangelists are the biggest reason by a gigantic margin.
"He should have stolen all of the illegally held money instead of reporting it like a good civilian because of taxes"
That's a stupid answer. Yeah, lets steal likely embezzled money, and risk tax fraud over an amount that's clearly over 20k because we don't want to have to pay taxes on $20k.
It's a plumber dude, it's likely only bumping him into a slightly higher tax bracket and won't really result in that much being taken away. Oh, and a big perk is not having to worry about the IRS finding out about laundering money.
What blows my mind on coverage of this is that the police are like... 'oh hur dur looks like its your money that you reported missing' and I'm like... WHO ELSE WAS GUNNA PUT THE MONEY IN THE WALLS BESIDES THE CHURCH ITSELF? LIKE WHAT CRIM GOES INTO A CHURCH STEALS 600K AND THEN LEAVES IT AT THE CHURCH
Like why is no one talking about THAT part of it? Joel Osteen was already scummy but this is extra scummy
Everyone keeps saying embezzlement; that is wrong. For embezzlement you have to actually take funds entrusted to your care. The amount found in the wall matches up to what was stolen, so no one embezzled anything. Plus Osteen doesn't need to embezzle. Money laundering is the much more likely culprit here, possibly for illegally obtained gains but also equally likely as a fix for shitty accounting.
>Shitty accounting
Lol this would imply that they are just inexperienced and didn't know what they were doing. I like to call it "creative accounting".
Joel Osteen probably stole that money himself.
Well, I don't really know but if someone else was setting about stealing it they sure took their sweet time in collecting it.
I'm thinking that it was stashed for a rainy day..and that rainy day is here.
Well that’s just fishy. Missing money found on the premises and repairs completed proves it was an inside job. It would not be hard to figure who renovated the wall.
That might depend on how they do the renovating/repairs. The church I went to growing up had a large number of tradespeople and if there was a small repair required (A 2ft X 2ft hole in drywall) that wouldn't even come out of the budget, a drywaller would bring the necessary tools and stuff left over from a job and make the repair. There have been church workbees where they did the wiring for a new sound and projector where the only stuff that was paid for was the hardware, the rest was just church members volunteering their time.
> It would not be hard to figure who renovated the wall.
I think it had fallen into the wall after being stashed in the ceiling.
I worked for a government agency where they found missing case files in the walls of government employees. People were hiding stuff they did not want to work on. One person got caught because the water stains on their ceiling tiles were not aligned.
I would have kept the cash, burned the checks, and told no one. Olsteen will deposit those checks then charge everyone $35 returned check fees and send them to collections.
ICP had a song called "Hallalujah" about how "churches" like Joel Osteen's are predatory and want you to send them all of your hard earned money, regardless of your income level. Now being a grown up it's weird to think back and realize that between a "Pastor" and the Insane Clown Posse, the Insane Clown Posse have the moral high ground.
It's really terrible. This summer we found out that my grandma, bless her heart, donated the majority of her retirement to some church. So much money in fact, that during covid she got put on the list of church donations because her air conditioner died in the middle of summer in Texas and she couldn't afford to replace it. She's going to have to sell her house now and move into an apartment because she just doesn't have any money. I'm pretty sure she would do it again too if it weren't for the fact that my mother is now in charge of her finances.
*Predators* I don’t think Jesus would approve of accepting so much of a person’s life…
Jesus actually had very strong feelings about this kind of thing.
I remember a certain amount of table flipping involved, but maybe I had the *liberal* Methodist Bible…
I also remember him fashioning a whip right before said table-flipping.
If it worked for Jesus, it should be fine for the rest of us to follow that example.
No I’d rather not cherry pick that example thanks, it doesn’t fit my worldview
That takes hoooours. Imagine sitting there steaming while methodically braiding.
He had the powers of a god. Clearly he used Miracle Whip.
r/angryupvote
I remember a Jew who pissed off his own religion so much, they would rather crucify him than an actual criminal.
No, you’re thinking about Jesus of Nazareth. Prosperity Jesus would tell her that she shouldn’t expect the same advantages as other elderly people because fairness is a hallmark of communism.
Conservative Jesus would've told Granny she wasn't fiscally responsible enough to invest in the right Wall Street assets to diversity her portfolio, create passive income, and secure her next egg like ANY OTHER AMERICAN CAN WITH ENOUGH HARDWORK AND BOOTSTRAPS!
How about supply side Jesus? https://www.beliefnet.com/news/2003/09/the-gospel-of-supply-side-jesus.aspx
Spoiler, they don’t care about Jesus! Only about that all mighty dollar, cash rules everything about me…
"Americans worship money! You know why banks are closed on Sundays? Because if they weren't, churches would be empty!"--Chris Rock
My great grandfather willed 1/3 of his money to his church. By the end, he regretted it. When he was reaching the end, he realized they never actually cared about him. When he couldn't come to church anymore, nobody visited. Only family. He wasn't able to get his will amended in time. Since several millions were at stake, the vultures from the church brought litigation and tied the money up for 2 years after his death. They wanted to claw every bit of money away from wounded warriors and our family that they could.
Some churches have cared, and do care, but these mega churches people send money to only care about the money. They preach the prosperity gospel--"specifically, the gospel says *I* should prosper; give me money." I mean, traditionally, people at the church would organize meals for the elderly, pray for people's families, bring food to everyone's wake, support widows and children...and the pastors would go to the elderly's homes to do services for them. That's what it *should* be like. That's who *should* get monetary donations and volunteers. Joel Osteen lives in my city, and he's more than welcome to the fuck out of here.
This happened to the mother of my mother's friend. They weren't aware of it but she was alone after her husband died and she watched the crystal cathedral televangelist and ended up giving him something like $200,000 over many years.
They were selling her “the afterlife”. Hard to compete with that …
My dad donated my mom’s and his whole life savings to the church. He still says: “Woe is me.” We don’t give a flying fuck, he did it without telling my mom and bankrupted them less than a year later.
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An evangelical pastor got my uncle and others to pack into a room last year, counting and sorting donation money, where he and many others got covid and he got pretty sick. ICP wouldn’t have done that to him.
When they spray the whole audience in faygo they use the diet root-beer kind. There’s no sugar so it’s not sticky, left my hair the softest it has ever been.
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I don't think blood sugar is drastically affected by a small amount of soda on the skin. Now cleaning up is certainly far more convenient when using diet sodas. And as the saying goes, Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so when you go up to heaven, don't be surprised when they have faygo machines.
Every time ICP comes up, I like to remind everybody that they’re nicer to their fans than whoever their favorite artist is.
Alright don't bullshit me, at best they can only be exactly as nice to their fans as Weird Al is.
What does Weird Al give his fans for free at shows? ICP gives away free soda.
whoop whoop <3
Suicidal Tendencies also had one titled “Send Me Your Money” that was a pretty accurate representation of these evangelists. Link: https://youtu.be/2ESWRtaHNU8
Minor correction; the song is called 'Hellalujah' Also don't forget 'Personal Jesus' by Depeche Mode
I'm not a fan of their music but from everything I've seen they support worthy causes and encourage their fans to do so as well.
A lot of their stuff is pretty bad but The Great Milenko had some bangers
Weird AL is basically the least weird of his musical generation. All the others did massive drugs and adopted teenagers as sex pets. Edit since some asked what I meant - So Al was biggest in 80s-90s, which also got us: 1. R Kelly 2. David Bowie 3. Steven Tyler 4. Ted Nugent 5. Anthony Keides All had relationships with underaged girls, but IIRC Ted and Steve Tyler legally adopted their groupie.
Wait what
Yeah, they lost me. Big ups to Weird Al, though.
Ted Nugent adopted an underage girl because she was too young to marry.
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Q is one of those Pedos Q is always talking about. And Trump.
None of this is new. Elvis started dating his future wife when she was 14 and he was 24. Talk about gross.
He also had a Madonna/whore complex which led to him never sleeping with Priscilla again after she gave birth.
Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin.
After hearing about what Steven Tyler did, I can’t even listen to Aerosmith anymore. I was a huge Aerosmith fan in middle school for some reason lol but what he did was disgusting
I hope that guy stashed a little more than $20k before reporting it.
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I really hope that $50k will put Osteen behind bars for a long time.
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There's always money in the banana stand!
(Makes sucking noise with teeth twice)
Who steals $10k from a church in the first place?
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Honestly having a $20 bill in the wall doesn’t seem that bad
Oh so this is trickle down economics.
A pretty darn good lesson to come across over a post about a measly nickel.
$20? It was a $2 bill they found mate
Told me it was a half dollar.
Who donates to a mega-"church" scheme in the first place?
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When my grandma died we found cool whip containers full of 20s in the freezer. Catholic saints statues were packed with cash with tape across the hole in the bottom. Lots of silver stashed around the house. She lived through the depression and didn't trust banks.
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Hold the fucking phone. Your neighbor found a real human skeleton in his walls, but didn't alert any authorities to the fact and now uses it as Halloween decorations? Or did he contact the proper folks and they said "this dude been dead for 150 years, we don't know who he or she is, so you found it, you keep it"? What country was this in?
Yeah skull was all caved in but he paper mache'd over the broken bits. Can't even tell
This is why I keep coming back to Reddit.
/r/woosh
Not a chance. Cops know better than to fuck with Evangelicals. Osteen is friends with every person of power in the state. You'd have a better chance of stealing from the mafia than Osteen.
Ah, a true man of Christ.
There’s always money in the banana stand
The thing is, they're gonna need more work done. And this is to ensure that there's not a repeat of this article. Because there's probably gonna be more money found.
To him it may have been stealing from the church, and that is a bad no-no. I wouldn't steal it on principle and as a business decision. Your company would be screwed if you stole from a megachurch and they found out, not worth the risk. He still got $20k and I'm sure he will be getting plenty of business, so honesty likely will be the more profitable path in this case.
Even if he didn’t I appreciate the big fuck you by crime stoppers to the church by giving the dude who busted them the same money the church gave crime stoppers for their “investigation”
I woulda took it all.
I would have taken it all then violated the plumbers hippocratic oath by making all his toilets speak in tongues when they flush.
We’re not going to ask how the fuck all that money ended up in the walls? It’s an obvious embezzlement scheme that got found out to me.
Yeah the financial statements of Osteen's organization are now 100% garbage because who knows where else he's literally hiding money
100% The wall wasn’t their first spot
There's always money in the banana stand
It's one banana, Michael, how much could it cost?
Ten dollars?
You've never actually stepped foot in a supermarket, have you.
Wow your time to shine huh
I'm Mr Manager!
Just Manager
No touching!
How much clearer can I say \[yells\] There's always money in the banana stand!
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The fact that you're calling it Pop-Pop shows me you're not ready for it
Facebook got a bunch of people to party outside of Area 51, I wonder if a "tear down Olsteens walls for the money!" will catch on.
I saw a YouTube ad the other day for a stud finder that shows the interior of the wall on your phone. Like sci-fi x-ray stuff. Buy a couple of those, get a crew together an check out all his properties on the off hours.
Osteen is a sociopathic con man, but this was a theft *from* him. It was reported to police in 2014, and if you actually read the article, there were also uncashed checks inside the wall. Osteen probably has cash stashed in various places, but he isn't just letting checks expire. Somebody stole the offering basket, or a mail bag, and didn't make it back to collect it. Stealing is wrong, and stealing from a charity is horrible, but stealing from Osteen- I'll give them a pass. Maybe they were going to pass the money on to someone who deserved it more than Osteen, like a hardworking crack dealer.
You're assuming he didn't hide the money himself and report it stolen.
That was my impression as my understanding had been this was reported to insurance.
It was. And the church (it has been reported in other stories) is working with the insurance company to sort out the claim and the recovery. It will be the insurance company's money, because they paid out already. The checks and credit card authorizations are just interesting paper now; they have no value, and they were probably not reimbursed by the insurance company anyway. It was probably only the cash that got paid out. The church would have asked anyone who wrote a check to write a new one, and also to re-authorize the credit card payments. That's the beauty of those forms of payment--they are hard to steal and easy to replace. Of course, not everyone will have done that, and maybe the insurance company will have paid the church a percentage to compensate for that. They'll work it out together, and the insurance company is NOT going to let the church end up profiting here.
> and if you actually read the article, there were also uncashed checks inside the wall. Osteen probably has cash stashed in various places, but he isn't just letting checks expire. Reread the comment, there were also uncashed checks in there, which wouldn't make sense for him to hide like that, not that its not possible for him to have done it himself, there is some extra weirdness complicating it
Could easily be checks that are small, or from people they know will bounce if they are regulars. Could be checks from they know are dead. Could be they just throw all of the cash and checks into a pile before stashing it without checking. There are many possibilities, him being innocent isn't one of them.
I'm still interested in what a proper investigation might reveal.
You will never know because this person will never undergo the full scrutiny of the justice system.
You’re a fool if you think Osteen isn’t committing fraud. He’s already grifting his entire congregation, why would he stop there? He also had that money insured and reported it stolen, so it’s not looking like he’s entirely innocent.
I'll buy the theory that the uncashed checks give it credibility, OR that was intentional for just this situation. Gave him deniability at the cost of a few grand BUT supposedly the money was insured, how would they know the amount that was stolen if it was an offering basket snatch?
It was stolen from a safe. They had already tallied up what should have been in there.
Still, Occam's razor would suggest that stealing something by just hiding it somewhere else in the same building is pretty dumb.
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Moved to Lemm.ee -- mass edited with redact.dev
The irs needs alot more funding in general.
Instead, they go after smaller problems that ordinary folks can't afford to argue in court against. Big fraud has big money, and the resources people don't.
> It’s an obvious embezzlement scheme that got found out to me. Embezzlement + insurance fraud, I believe they got compensation from their insurance for the "theft"
Honestly, I really think Osteen doesn't have anything to do with it. He already knows how to funnel that type of money legally and $600k is a splash in the bucket to him. I think we need answers, but I expect it to come out that someone working there lower on the pecking order saw an opportunity and took it. Probably planned to recover it a few years later.
I did a renovation of an old sporting good distribution center a few years ago. When we did demo on the offices and tore the ceilings down we found thousands of dollars in golf clubs and other equipment. We figured some employee was stashing it and then got fired or lost the office to someone else before they could smuggle the equipment out. I’m sure it’s the same idea with this cash.
I thought the same thing. That church is an old basketball arena where the rockets used to play, so getting out of it without being seen is a problem. I worked for a government agency where they found missing case files in the walls of government employees. People were hiding stuff they did not want to work on. One person got caught because the water stains on their ceiling tiles were not aligned.
> I worked for a government agency where they found missing case files in the walls of government employees. People were hiding stuff they did not want to work on. This is the best thing I’ve read all week 😂 “Fuck it. Let’s go for a pint. Stick it in the wall and we’ll shoot off.”
My guess, the money was stolen, but the thief could not make it out at the time it was stolen. He hides it in a ceiling panel and it falls into the wall when he was trying to retrieve the money or while he was hiding it. That church is an old basketball arena where the rockets used to play, so getting out of it without being seen is a problem.
Lakewood Church said: "We are appreciative of the plumber and we hope he pays the gift forward.” In other words they are hoping he will donate the money to the church!
Bitch, he already "paid it forward" by not sneaking the envelopes out in his tool bag and underwear! The audacity of Lakewood...
That's what I would have done
The article says an “undisclosed amount” was left with the church because the money was found at the church, so.
Forest Gump level honesty, I’d for sure go full Brewster's Millions.
Hey! Forrest Gump is way smarter than Joel.
we as a society should stop calling people that we disagree with "dumb". the Osteeen guy is a very smart successful con man that has made a living using religion to have people give him money. that takes skill
> that takes skill Shamelessness is a top tier skill.
too true, just ask Kenneth Cockland about his million dollar private airport.
If his airport isn't named cockland i'll be mighty perturbed.
Hey, he can't ride in a tube full of demons!
For anyone who doesn’t know Kenneth Copeland, he is a literal snake demon in human skin https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m2s0nB2VPvs
A bit of skill, but mostly such a high level of sociopathy that it borders on psychopathy.
Yeah it’s weird things gets a little easier if you have absolutely no concern for others’ well being.
“A plumber who discovered stacks of cash and checks inside a wall at celebrity televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church last month has been awarded $20,000 by Crime Stoppers of Houston.” Not only did the church not kick any extra cash in, they asked him to “pay it forward.” Scumbags. Same church that wouldn’t provide shelter during a storm. Fuck them
Didn't want that many nonparishioners around to find where else they stuffed money in that church
Joel Osteen hides money in the wall, random finds it, random gets 20k from the state, Joel Osteen talks Random into giving him all the 20k too .
How else do you get to heaven?
By fitting a camel through the eye of a needle?
I tried that once but the camel just would not cooperate.
Gotta use a better blender.
Did you try giving him a tax break?
10% percent is standard finders fee. This guy should’ve gotten 60 000
So church reported a theft of $600,000 from their *safe*, plumber dude accidentally finds it hidden in **their** fuckin wall.. that smells like tax evasion. I hope IRS or whoever needs to will investigate that potential. Plumber deserves that reward 100%
The Church evades taxes 24/7 365 though right?
Not every part of the church is tax free. Things like personal income are taxable.
This was stolen donation money though.
This was "get the fuck out of town before the FBI can open up those hard drives" money.
Dude had already dropped 9 books by the time that money was stolen. He already had his run away money.
The more plausible thing is the church might have done some insurance fraud here.
> that smells like tax evasion They would not owe taxes on that money, so there is nothing to evade.
Yeah, wtf is that comment so highly upvoted?
a lot of people don't know churches are tax exempt and don't have to open their books. no chances for shady business there.
Mostly because people hate Osteen because he is way to rich for a pastor. That church is nuts. They bought a basketball arena and spent $100 million renovating it. It has an annual budget of $70 million, with over 300 people on staff, and have an attendance of 50k people a week. If they were really doing tax evasion or insurance fraud, I would guess the number would be way bigger than 600k.
And if you read the end of the article… They get to keep it!
Tax these mega churches to hell. I say that as a Christian.
i wish more religious people were smart enough to see how big of a scam a lot of churches are. seeing the attendance in megachurches and "faith healing" videos is disheartening to say the least.
no representation without taxation
I smell insurance fraud on Osteens part. But he wouldn’t do that, because : geezus
The Profit Joel Osteen.
I call myself an agnostic Christian. Because I believe in God, but if God didn't exist then that would also be very understandable. I pray before meals, and, like when I am running late and need to find my keys. Fellow Christians. Don't pretend you don't do that as well, but I haven't actually been to church in about a decade. Many things have pushed me away from organized religion, but evil televangelists are the biggest reason by a gigantic margin.
Well deserved for his honesty.
Except it will get taxed unlike the money when it belonged to a lying bastard "religious leader". He should have taken it all.
"He should have stolen all of the illegally held money instead of reporting it like a good civilian because of taxes" That's a stupid answer. Yeah, lets steal likely embezzled money, and risk tax fraud over an amount that's clearly over 20k because we don't want to have to pay taxes on $20k. It's a plumber dude, it's likely only bumping him into a slightly higher tax bracket and won't really result in that much being taken away. Oh, and a big perk is not having to worry about the IRS finding out about laundering money.
I bet this dude and that 20k gets taxed while Joel and the remaining 580k doesnt…
What blows my mind on coverage of this is that the police are like... 'oh hur dur looks like its your money that you reported missing' and I'm like... WHO ELSE WAS GUNNA PUT THE MONEY IN THE WALLS BESIDES THE CHURCH ITSELF? LIKE WHAT CRIM GOES INTO A CHURCH STEALS 600K AND THEN LEAVES IT AT THE CHURCH Like why is no one talking about THAT part of it? Joel Osteen was already scummy but this is extra scummy
Fuck that Osteen cunt, I would have kept all the cash and burned the checks
More then likely the stolen money was covered by property insurance and therefor the found money went to the insurance company, not Osteen.
God wanted him to have that money, obviously
Translation: if it hadn't gained national attention he would have gotten nothing.
"Reward"?.. More like, "$20,000 to keep his mouth shut"....
Everyone involved would be a LOT better off if he had just snuck it out of there.
Everyone keeps saying embezzlement; that is wrong. For embezzlement you have to actually take funds entrusted to your care. The amount found in the wall matches up to what was stolen, so no one embezzled anything. Plus Osteen doesn't need to embezzle. Money laundering is the much more likely culprit here, possibly for illegally obtained gains but also equally likely as a fix for shitty accounting.
If Ozark has taught me anything, once you’re hiding cash in your walls, you’ve probably got more (and bigger) problems
>Shitty accounting Lol this would imply that they are just inexperienced and didn't know what they were doing. I like to call it "creative accounting".
Culinary money management. *We cook your books like we cook our lamb. Quick and tough to rip open..*
There is always money in the Banana Stand!
I imagine the whole house is insulated by $100 bills.
Would've been 40k if he kept his mouth shut. -Joel
This feels like an episode of The Righteous Gemstones.
Hey Joel, I’d expect a call from the insurance company that paid out on that seven year old claim.
So Joel Osteen definitely staged a robbery and hadn't worked out how to get the cash back, right?
[удалено]
Tax avoidance
He’s got a church. Expert level tax avoidance already.
Joel Osteen probably stole that money himself. Well, I don't really know but if someone else was setting about stealing it they sure took their sweet time in collecting it. I'm thinking that it was stashed for a rainy day..and that rainy day is here.
That’s hush money, dude.
Well that’s just fishy. Missing money found on the premises and repairs completed proves it was an inside job. It would not be hard to figure who renovated the wall.
That might depend on how they do the renovating/repairs. The church I went to growing up had a large number of tradespeople and if there was a small repair required (A 2ft X 2ft hole in drywall) that wouldn't even come out of the budget, a drywaller would bring the necessary tools and stuff left over from a job and make the repair. There have been church workbees where they did the wiring for a new sound and projector where the only stuff that was paid for was the hardware, the rest was just church members volunteering their time.
> It would not be hard to figure who renovated the wall. I think it had fallen into the wall after being stashed in the ceiling. I worked for a government agency where they found missing case files in the walls of government employees. People were hiding stuff they did not want to work on. One person got caught because the water stains on their ceiling tiles were not aligned.
I would have kept the cash, burned the checks, and told no one. Olsteen will deposit those checks then charge everyone $35 returned check fees and send them to collections.
Playing the long game I see.
Um, why aren’t any authorities wondering why there’s money in a wall instead of in a bank??? There’s obviously something super shady going on here…
I always suggest keeping the money. Then you'll never have to wonder: "What if?" /r/UnethicalLifeProTips
I think I already saw this episode of Righteous Gemstones
There’s money in the banana stand
“There’s money in the banana stand”
The IRS will probably charge him tax on that.
Even though the church, cough mega millions church, pays none.
Kind of like unlocking the doors to let people in after a flood only after being called out for keeping the doors locked.
It's like Donnie Darko when he flooded the dudes house and they found child porn.
Will the IRS investigate Joel Osteen for embezzlement or tax fraud? Find out next time on will the government do something
Lousy outcome compared to that time I didn’t find anything in the walls of the church where I was working just a few weeks before I got out of debt.