Testimony Paints Picture Of Double Life Led By Baptist Leader's Alleged Mistress
February 2, 1999LARGO, Fla. Weeks after buying an expensive Florida home with the Rev. Henry Lyons, Bernice Edwards spent her days being driven to department and jewelry stores, a taxi driver told jurors.
Meanwhile, a friend of Edwards testified that Lyons' alleged mistress was living in Milwaukee without a bank account and worrying she'd be kicked out of her modest home for not paying taxes.
The portrait of Edwards' dual lives emerged Monday in the racketeering trial against her and Lyons, president of the Nashville, Tenn.-based National Baptist Convention USA.
The pair is accused of swindling more than $4 million from corporations seeking to do business with the powerful black church group, using the money to finance their own lavish lifestyles.
Josephine Hicks, a Milwaukee diner owner, said she loaned Edwards $3,000 for taxes she owed on her home.
"She told me she was in a bad situation at that time, around Christmas time," Hicks testified about the woman she knew as Bree Jones.
Hicks also cashed checks for Edwards because she did not have a bank account of her own.
Eventually, Hicks opened a bank account under the name J & H Associates so she would not have to cash the checks though her business account, she testified.
Prosecutors say more than $1.6 million was funneled through that account. Hicks said she was unaware of that, but was informed by the bank when a deposit exceeding $200,000 was made to the account.
"I asked, 'Is it legal? Where did it come from?' My social security number is on that account and I don't want to be involved with the IRS,'" she told jurors.
Hicks believed the money was coming from Edwards' job as public relations director for the convention, she said.
Taxi cab driver Bud Kline, who met Edwards shortly before she and Lyons closed on a home, testified he drove her to department and jewelry stores for shopping.
She always paid, he said, with large amounts of cash she kept in her purse.
Lyons also is charged with grand theft, accused of stealing about $250,000 from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith intended to rebuild burned black churches in the South.
He faces another trial this spring on 54 federal charges of bank fraud, wire fraud, extortion and money laundering.
Lyons' lawyers have said his failed business deals are not criminal matters.
February 2, 1999
Source: Newswire
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