Former Assistant Says Baptist Group Listed No More Than 15,000 Members
January 28, 1999LARGO, Fla. — Although the National Baptist Convention USA boasted of having 8.5 million members, the black church organization's mailing list never exceeded 15,000, a former assistant for the group's president testified Thursday.
Bonita Henderson, the Rev. Henry J. Lyons' former administrative assistant, said the convention claimed to encompass 33,000 churches, but its own list showed between 5,000 and 7,000 churches.
No lists showed 8.5 million individual members, and she did not know where that figure originated.
"Dr. Lyons told me nobody really knew. They just gave out the number,'' she testified.
Lyons and his alleged mistress, Bernice Edwards, are charged with racketeering. They allegedly financed a lavish lifestyle by swindling more than $4 million from corporations seeking to do business with the convention's members.
Prosecutors have said the 8.5 million figure was a hoax used to attract companies. They estimate the convention's membership may have been fewer than 1 million people. However, the total is difficult to estimate because churches in the convention generally did not share their membership lists with the group.
Ms. Henderson also testified that she'd had a sexual affair with Lyons, who paid her rent on her Tampa apartment and shared her bank account.
Lyons is also charged with stealing $250,000 the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith donated to rebuild burned black churches in the South.
January 28, 1999
Source: Newswire
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