The Pocono Feast site has been condemned and is being turned into a new corporate business park - called Pocono Mountains Corporate Center East.
As many Worldwiders will recall, the Pocono property was originally a WCG Feast of Tabernacles site. The 247 acre site was owned, developed and constructed by the WCG with much unpaid, volunteer, "sweat equity" labor from the church. One year after HWA died, Tkach Sr. sold it in a very mysterious transaction to the also mysterious US Senda Corporation, which supposedly had intended to develop and market the facility. The WCG property deed wording recorded claimed Pocono was sold for just "one dollar" and other valuable consideration. Just what other valuable consideration?
Property taxes declared on the sale were far, far lower than the estimated sales value of the property, Tkach hasn't released the 1987 WCG financial statements to show what money the WCG received for selling off the Pocono property. After the WCG sold it to US Senda, the property sat undeveloped, and it endured periodic vandalism, making it a blighted property. Monroe County, PA completed a redevelopment plan and the redevelopment authority of the county began the process of condemnation of the Poconos site. It would be interesting to know who really owned US Senda corporate stock, what US Senda paid Tkach for the Pocono property and compare the difference with what US Senda received for the condemned site from Monroe County. But with the Tkachs not responsibly releasing financial statements of their secretive cult, it's anybody's guess what the WCG actually got for the Pocono property, that is besides "one dollar".
The former feast site project was unique because it was one of the few times in the Commonwealth of PA that a redevelopment authority has condemned property and sold it to a public entity, like Pocono Mountains Industries (PMI), for development. Condemned properties are typically sold directly to the private sector. A 54,000 sq. foot Mountain Health Care facility has already been completed off Rt. 610 in the business park.
US Senda was a subsidiary of a Japanese corporation formed in California on 2/9/87 - in other words, formed only weeks prior to the time the Pocono deal was completed. The CA corporation in question could have been was formed for the specific purpose of buying Pocono from the WCG. The Calfornia private corporation US Senda in the WCG Pocono land deal has since been dissolved and disappeared without a trace. Believe it or not, US Senda corporate offices in California were listed in the Pocono property sale records as strangely being located in a warehouse, right across from the WCG campus on the other side of freeway, opposite Waverly Drive, directly behind Mijares Mexican Restaurant. How very odd. John Trechak then discovered where U.S. Senda moved to (at 200 E. Del Mar Blvd. in Pasadena) the exact suite at which the Senda Group received mail is also an address where Osamu Gotoh and associates received mail!
Tkach Jr. undoubtedly knows how much the WCG was paid for the Pocono feast site; for what reason the mysterious US Senda corporation was formed, with offices adjacent to the WCG Pasadena campus; how this mysterious US Senda corporation got the winning bid for the property; and who really benefited from the sale of the Pocono site. Certainly not the rank and file members. But Tkach isn't talking, he's taking the fifth.
Tkach Jr. undoubtedly knows how much the WCG was paid for the Pocono feast site; for what reason the mysterious US Senda corporation was formed, with offices adjacent to the WCG Pasadena campus; how this mysterious US Senda corporation got the winning bid for the property; and who really benefited from the sale of the Pocono site. Certainly not the rank and file members. But Tkach isn't talking, he's taking the fifth.
9 comments:
holy crap!
I believe there are some clues to this mystery.
The name of the "buying company" was "US Senda".
The US can easily be figured to be "United States". The word "Senda" in Japanese comes out as "Sendai".
Sendai literally means "ancient family" or interestingly enough "1000 year reign".
I think this is more than a coincidence.
The Sendai Domain in Japan is one of the most ancient of the Japanese Family domains and fiefdoms. These are true Japanese bluebloods, one of the wealthiest family domains of Japan, and dating back to the 1600s.
These clues contained in the Senda name itself are enough to tell me that there is little doubt that the entire transaction involved WCG Japanese liason Gotoh, Stanley Rader and high level Japanese contacts that the WCG and HWA often bragged about and cultivated.
Some form of unholy asset transfer was achieved to high level Japanese, for repayment of some form of perk. The ultimate intimate details are likely never to be known publicly.
The development company for the property has a nice online brochure about the purchase and property here:
http://www.poconomts.com/pmi/spring06.pdf
John Trechak of the old Ambassdor Report did some amazing investigative reporting here on this odd and secretive Poconos issue here:
http://www.hwarmstrong.com/ar/AR55.html
Bill Lussenheide, Menifee, CA USA
the entire tkach theft of the worldwide church of god could have easily been prevented by a one page derivitive lawsuit filed by any member of the wwcg based on the intentional wasting of corporate assets.
the wcg is now and has always been a california C corporation. i know, i checked as anyone can with the california sec. of state. there has never been a corporate sole recognized in america. that is a british idea borrowed by stanley rader to confuse the stupid members.
because members were forced to tithe or buy stock, and then members were promised that the auditorium would remain in perpetuity in the church as christ's seat of government, then it is obvious that the members had absolute promised rights or investments and by law any member could file a drivitive lawsuit, or in layman's language, could force the church or corporation to sue itself to stop the deliberate waste of corporate assets.
also, by irs and california law, a non-profit cannot just go out of business. the assets must be placed into another not for profit corporation.
to get a better understanding of where the members' money actually went, one should look very closely at the relationship between tkach and azusa-pacific university.
it is no coincidence that APU was bankrupt and basically a trailer park college in the 80's and 90's. then magically, after ambassador center opened there and tkach and all the cabal got very quick phd's from apu, that APU has gone on a spending and building explosion.
hmmm, and by the way, herman hoeh and the other super evangelists sat on their asses while tkach and schnippert engineered this theft. please don't forget that fact.
why would fire and brimstone preachers sit idylly by while satan stole their church? money!
a lot of money, sometimes called pensions or other compensation.
now, did i miss something here or does the story not say that the city owns the property because it has been condemned?
if the property just sat unused what kind of asset other than low level taxes could anybody get?
why would a billion dollar japanese corporation want a small us tax break?
a more likely senario would have the pocono transaction being a diversion and allowing tkach to claim that the church was going broke and was forced to go out of business and was his official story, as was the emergency sale of big sandy.
reality tells us as well as 60 minutes that wcg raked in over $100 million a year for decades and the year after armstrong died wcg collected $250 million.
remember that tkach took a mysterious trip right after he took the reigns to england,germany,jamaica the bahamas and switzerland! the official reason was to boost morale. the truth is that those are off-shore banking centers and coincidentally wcg had large deposits in those banks.
Thanks, i agree that there is a strange connection to Azusa-Pacific and the WCG, and don't forget that Ambassador center paid tuition for and gave free college education to supporters of tkach and their children, at Azusa-Pacific.
The truth will out because to many innocent people were shafted in this debacle.
Bill,
I have not yet been able to derive any definite significance to “Senda” corporation. Senda, Sendai, and Nihon are all common in the Japanese language. Senda corporation is not listed in primary reference works I checked for major US and internationally based companies, such as Hoover's. Nor is it traded to my knowledge on the US stock exchanges.
Nevertheless, your Senda theory is an interesting one.
It is entirely possible selling Pocono as a quid pro quo "perk" was done for some favor done for Armstrong through Osamu Gotoh.
Also, if some Worldwiders were given stock in US Senda, once the California subsidiary company was liquidated, the money value in the Poconos real estate could have been cashed out to the speculative WCG insiders holding the stock for payback.
It never ceases to amaze how a Japanese cab driver turned Ambassador professor “Dr. Osamu Gotoh”obtained contacts with high level government representatives so easily. Perhaps Gotoh bearing the right amount cash and gifts was able to obtain what Armstrong wanted with greater dispatch than distinguished men of higher pedigree with legitimate business at hand.
Stan
Anonymous 5:21,
The Radio Church of God (later Worldwide Church of God) was originally an unincorporated association. The unincorporated association chose to form a religious corporation under the corporate law of the state California. The parent of a religious corporation in California can be an unincorporated association. In fact, the corporate church bylaws mention the unincorporated WCG association in particular and specifically stipulate the association as an entity having charge over the WCG corporation, with the capability of dissolving it completely.
California corporate statutes provide for a special, particular type of corporation used when forming churches called a religious corporation. It also allows for churches to incorporate under the corporate sole form of organization, as do other states.
The parent of the WCG is more likely an unincorporated association with a Board of Elders and Pastor General, but Tkachjr so far has refused to release the bylaws of his church cult. It is impossible to know until Tkachjr releases all of the bylaws of his worldwide church association, not just the California church corporation.
The WCG is definitely not a "C" corporation. The letter “C” refers to the federal tax code, not state laws of incorporation. A C corporation (or "C corp.") is a corporation in the United States that, for Federal income tax purposes, is taxed under 26 U.S.C. § 11 and Subchapter C (26 U.S.C. § 301 et seq.) of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code. Most major companies (and many smaller companies) are treated as C corporations for Federal income tax purposes. Of course, the WCG is not taxed as it is held to be church.
The corporate sole form of organization is recognized explicitly in seventeen states under statutory law, often in a special section for nonprofit corporations or in a section on religious societies. At least eight other jurisdictions have at least one corporation sole created under special or private charter, sometimes dating to a time before the passage of a general incorporation statute. During the time of the receivership, HWA incorporated the WCG under a new corporate sole form of organization, firing and rehiring employees, to defend himself against the financial charges brought against the California religious corporation. The corporate sole is recognized as a legitimate, legal way of incorporating a church in the United States. Various churches and organizations now utilize the corporate sole form of organization.
As you mentioned, If the WCG corporation is dissolved one day, the assets supposedly cannot to benefit private persons. This distribution of where the assets go upon WCG dissolution has already given an order of priority in the Tkach change to the WCG California corporation bylaws as has been published elsewhere. When individual WCG community chartered churches are folded up, the assets return back to hq, which decides what to do with any remaining local assets.
The ex-parte hearing without the WCG notified and present was granted in January 1979 partly on the theory it was essential to prevent the wasting of corporate assets, as a kind of “one page”derivative lawsuit to look after the interests of the members and donors. As you now know, it wasn't all that easy. Finding out how much WCG money was gifted to Azusa by Tkach would be quite illuminating on the whole Azusa episode.
While the WCG claims it is always broke and in a money crisis, you raise an important question but with an unknown answer. Just how bankrupt is the WCG today?
Stan
California Corporations Code
§10002 on corporate sole formation:
§10002. A corporation sole may be formed under this part by the bishop, chief priest, presiding elder, or other presiding officer of any religious denomination, society, or church, for the purpose of administering and managing the affairs, property, and temporalities
thereof.
§10003. The articles of incorporation shall state:
(a) The name of the corporation.
(b) That the officer forming the corporation is duly authorized by
the rules, regulations, or discipline of the religious denomination,
society, or church to take such action.
(c) The county in this State where the principal office for the
transaction of the business of the corporation is located.
(d) The manner in which any vacancy occurring in the office of the
bishop, chief priest, presiding elder, or other presiding officer is required to be filled by the rules, regulations, or constitution of the denomination, society, or church."
Other states have their own statutes governing corporate sole formation, administration, and dissolution.
Armstrong formed an additional corporate sole for his WCG to fend off the receivership as a new safekeeping repository for the money he controlled.
Yet another reason why, in your terms, "file a drivitive lawsuit, or in layman's language, could force the church or corporation to sue itself to stop the deliberate waste of corporate assets" would not be such a simple operation with a definite outcome.
"there has never been a corporate sole recognized in america. that is a british idea borrowed by stanley rader to confuse the stupid members"
Of course the corporate sole is legally recognized by courts in America. This is a quote from an appeal of a case, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (People) (2005) , Cal.App.4th:
"This proceeding arises out of a grand jury investigation into allegations that two Roman Catholic priests, petitioners Doe 1 and Doe 2 (sometimes hereafter referred to as the Priests), sexually assaulted children while they worked for petitioner Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles, a Corporation Sole (hereafter referred to as the Archdiocese). In seeking to quash grand jury subpoenas duces tecum, petitioners raise issues that require a balance of the rights of religious belief and practice with the rules of the criminal justice system."
As you can see from this recent 2005 appeal, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles Archdiocese is organized as a corporate sole, the same form of church entity Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong utilized to financially circumvent the Attorney General of California.
However, Cardinal Mahony's corporate sole didn't protect him well in the abuse lawsuits, as he wound up paying over $500 million dollars in actual damages to the church's victims.
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