Goodness, people are stupid about this stuff:
After defrauding a married couple in a home sale, their pastor tried to wrongfully evict them, the couple claims in court - and they say they're not the only ones.
Maximino Medenilla Gonzalez and Janeth Denova Jaimes sued Salvador Villegas, in Travis County Court.
They claim they're not the only victims of the pastor, who "perpetuates a relationship of trust, then defrauds individuals when they 'buy' a house from him."
The couple say they bought a home from Villegas in 2007, after leasing it for a year.
They claim Villegas "urged" them to buy the property and preyed upon their language difficulties by having them sign incorrect documents, which left them owing more than the actual balance of the mortgage.
"Interestingly, defendant knew that plaintiffs were not English speaking, but to take advantage of them had all the documents created in English, despite the fact that he himself the defendant spoke fluent English and Spanish, so to have the documents in Spanish would not have created any inconvenient [sic] whatsoever," the complaint states.
The couple say Villegas, who was their pastor, occasionally used plaintiff Gonzalez as a subcontractor on his projects. But when Gonzalez had a falling-out with Villegas, the pastor instituted foreclosure proceedings, though they were current on their mortgage payments, according to the complaint.
"What makes matters worse is the fact that defendant was plaintiffs' pastor, therefore they trusted him and believed as did many others, that defendant would do what was right and would not swindle them out of money," the complaint states.
"Therefore they trusted him,..." In other words, a couple of marks. Repeat after me:
Anyone claiming to be in touch with the spirit world - in any way, shape, or form - is delusional or a liar, and, either way, not someone to trust with your money.
As William S. Burroughs famously said:
"If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch GET IT IN WRITING. His word isn't worth shit - not with the good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal."And, whatever you do, make it in a language you can read,...
Heh, I think Jesus said something about not everyone crying "Lord, Lord" is working on God's team, and that his father's house is not a marketplace.
ReplyDeleteBut a lot of people seem to rather conveniently forget that -- just witness how popular those televangelists and bhagram whatevers are, or even Sister Tonia the infomercial psychic....or the writings of Ayn Rand and Saul Alinsky.
As the marks seem to be just as willing to go along with it as Sister Tonia I suppose it's all fair game, play ball -- just wish people weren't so gullible and at least made the suckers work for it a little more.
PW
M