Pensacola evangelist convicted of tax fraud

[deadparrot]

PENSACOLA, Florida (AP) — An evangelist who founded Pensacola's defunct Dinosaur Adventure Land theme park is behind bars.

Jurors convicted Kent Hovind on 58 counts of tax fraud last night. The founder of Creation Science Evangelism is accused of failing to pay $845,000 in employee taxes at the dinosaur theme park, an amusement park that exposed visitors to Hovind and his followers' view that human and dinosaurs coexisted and that evolution did not occur.

Hovind, who faces a maximum of 288 years in prison, was taken into custody after the jury read its verdict.

Hovind's wife, Jo Hovind, was convicted on 44 of the counts involving evading bank-reporting requirements. She faces up to 225 years in prison but was allowed to remain free pending the couple's sentencing. That is January ninth.

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=42944

[JI7]

1. "his followers' view that human and dinosaurs coexisted "

[Erika]

2. Wonder who he voted for? n/t

[Webster Green]

3. Just cuz he missed evolution, he thinks everyone else did too.

What a knucklehead. He'll have lots of time to come up with even better ideas.

[54anickel]

4. Wow, this guy is nuttier than I realized. Check out Wikipedia - fun read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind

In the document, the Hovinds argue that Social Security is essentially a "Ponzi scheme."<30> The Hovinds referred to the United States Government as "the 'bankrupt' corporate government" and said they were renouncing their United States citizenship and Social Security numbers to become "a natural citizen of 'America' and a natural sojourner.").<30> In 2002 Hovind was again delinquent in paying his taxes, and unsuccessfully sued the IRS for harassment.<31> The Hovinds referred to their home state of Florida as "the State of Florida Body-Politic Corporation."<30> Judges and the IRS did not appear to honor this as a legally relevant document in future decisions.<31>

....

At the time of the indictment, Hovind's defense appeared to be that although there were 30 people working for him, all of whom receive remuneration in cash, none of them were employees. According to Hovind, "Nobody's an employee, and they all know that when they come. They come, they work ... The laborer is worthy of his hire -- we try to take the purely scriptural approach. We do the best we can with helping people with their family needs. There are no employees here."<44> Hovind has also claimed that he is not liable for taxes and his ministry does not have to "render unto Caesar" because it is not working for the government.<45>

On October 21, 2006, the trial began in which he hoped to convince a jury that his amusement park admission and merchandise sales belonged to God and cannot be taxed.<46> After the first week of testimony the trial was postponed due to a defense lawyer's illness.<47> Former and current workers, IRS agents, a bank employee, and a lawyer of a non-profit Christian organization testified in the trial. Workers testified that they had to punch time cards, had vacation and sick days; while others testified Hovind claimed he had "beat" the tax system.<48> During the trial, the judge "admonished" Hovind's attorney for wasting time and asking irrelevant questions.<49>

.....

[gratuitous]

8. He should hope the government doesn't go bankrupt

I mean, it would really suck to be behind bars when they had to close Hovind's prison for lack of money. Because it would be the height of cynical hypocrisy if Hovind didn't really believe all his blather about the government and was just playing on people's prejudices to get money from them.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[Amused Musings]

6. "Render unto Caesar...

the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

Hey Kent Hovind, I wonder who said that?

I paraphrase the Soprano's Christopher Multisante: "No way that's true. Eden was supposed to be a paradise. How could it be a Paradise if Adam and Eve were always running away from a Tyranosaurus?

[Roland99]

7. That article is a week old.

[yellowcanine]

9. "Dr." Dino not just a tax fraudster, also an academic fraudster. Has a fake

"doctoral" degree based on a faked "dissertation" from anaccredited "university" which is really just a Bible school.

http://www.kent-hovind.com/doctor/index.htm

[piedmont]

10. Woo-hoo! Creationists dropping like flies!

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes"
--Ben Franklin

You can deny evolution, but ya still gotta pay your taxes.

[Megahurtz]

11. Yet another "Born Again" Fraudster.

Gee, I'm surprised. :sarcasm: