Barry Minkow & $50,000 Burglary in Community Bible Church

Barry Minkow & $50,000 Burglary in Community Bible Church

Another chink in carefully fabricated faade of supposedly reformed conman Barry Minkow came with the burglary in the Community Bible Church in San Diego, where he is senior pastor on the intervening night of January 30-31, 2011.

The thieves broke in after smashing the glass door and wrecked the office, cracked the safe, stealing past week's church offerings worth more than $50,000 in cash and checks according to a report by 10News. Given Minkow's self- admitted history of staging burglaries to collect insurance money, many believe this to be another link in the chain of his misdemeanours which have come to the fore in recent months.

Though he is not an official suspect, but many church members told 10News they thought it must have been an inside job. Church member Sue Watt Patton told ABC 10News,"Obviously (they) knew that was the perfect time to go in there. The offerings from all the services had been made (and) all the money that was put in there to be taken to the bank - they got it."

Alan Stewart, the church's elder board treasurer, told the Weekly in an email Wednesday that church officials are still evaluating damage to the property and the cost of the stolen equipment and computers. "Once that is finalized we will file the insurance report."

Community Bible Church had no surveillance cameras but the church has an alarm system. Stewart said that they were evaluating why it didn't work properly. Improved surveillance measures were also under consideration. The $50,000 stolen from the church are way higher than the $37,000 per week Barry Minkow reported to be collected in a newsletter he issued last September. In the same letter he reported that Church budget was significantly higher standing at $44,000 per week and the church was $200,000 short of making budget. The letter also detailed cutbacks in everything from staff to donuts and reported that Minkow hasn't taken a salary for years.

The break-in is the latest in the series of Minkow controversial activities that were earlier reported in LA Weekly extensive article "Minkow 2.0." The self proclaimed fraud buster lost a libel and extortion case in Florida two months ago brought by the giant home builder Lennar Corp.

While delivering judgement in Lennar case, Judge Freeman said that Barry Minkow went to great lengths to deceive the court: lying, destroying or discarding key evidence and concealing material witnesses as Lennar pressed him to prove his allegations. Freeman trashed Minkow's claims due to lack of evidence that he couldn't produce documents because his computer was "stolen, crashed and/or was hacked." Minkow, in earlier court documents, said he'd had two laptops stolen. In the Lennar case, Minkow took a short position but lied about it when first asked. He also denied using church funds for his personal use but later, he was forced to admit that he had used $2,500 in church funds to pay for one of his consultants in the Lennar case. Initially, he had testifying that he'd spent his own money to pay the consultant.

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