Ephren Taylor’s Disastrous Megachurch Ponzi Scheme

In 1913, Charles Russell, a restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, was accused of bilking his followers on grain sales. Russell, it seemed, had been charging his flock exorbitant rates for a “Miracle Wheat” that, on further inspection, was not all that different from regular wheat. The scandal, according to a newspaper editorial at the time, proved “that ‘Pastor’ Russell’s religious cult is nothing more than a money-making scheme.”

Although Russell’s followers (now known as Jehovah’s Witnesses) still maintain his innocence, the scheme has become familiar, repeated countless times over the past century by a steady parade of religious hucksters, snake-oil salesmen, and bronzed televangelists looking to make a quick buck off of Bible Thumpers. The scams have gotten more sophisticated over the years—from the fake revelations of revivalist preacher Peter Popoff, to the 80s excess and false lashes of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, to Greater Ministries International’s antigovernment pyramid scheme—but the basic idea remains the same: Praise God, promise miracles, and when all eyes are turned up to Him, rob the whole flock blind.

Certainly, that was the MO of Ephren Taylor II, a twentysomething minister’s son and self-proclaimed “social capitalist” who spent most of the years between 2007 and 2010 visiting churches with his Wealth Tour Live seminars, hawking “socially conscious” investment opportunities that would make believers both godly and rich. Taylor was arrested this summer after nearly three years on the run from federal authorities, who claim he was running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that targeted megachurches around the country.

Initially, Taylor’s appeal was obvious. Marketing himself as the “youngest black CEO of a publicly traded company,” Taylor claimed to have founded two tech companies—and made his first million—before graduating from high school. He promised “low-risk, high-reward” investment opportunities that would “show you how to get wealth and use it for the building of His Kingdom,” as he told a congregation in 2009. In sermons, and later with infomercials, books, and webinars, Taylor would rev up the flock, quoting scripture, exalting Jesus, and sprinkling vague promises of “economic empowerment” and “attainable housing” with disparaging remarks about traditional investment vehicles like stock markets and mutual funds. The audience, he claimed, would be better off “firing their brokers” and buying into one of Taylor’s “no-risk sweepstakes machines”—or, better yet, transferring their money (all of it, ideally) into self-directed IRA custodial accounts, which Taylor’s company City Capital Corporation would then invest in inner-city businesses.

Congregations, including powerful megachurches like New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta and Joel Osteen’s behemoth Lakewood Church in Houston, ate it up, opening their doors—and wallets—to the black Elmer Gantry of the new millennium. “Your life is about to change,” said New Birth pastor Eddie Long, then a powerful televangelist, introducing “my friend, my brother, the great Ephren Taylor” to his congregation. God, said Long, wants “to finance you well to do His will.”

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