A Friendly Letter, The Blog.

Okay, this is not on my usual beat, and has only a very indirect connection with Quakerism.

But here’s the deal: Because of my work at Quaker House, involving GI counseling and jousting with the Demon of War, I subscribe to Army Times, a weekly dealing with — well, you can guess.

And in the Feb 1 issue of Army Times, there’s a feature section called “Off Duty,” in which there’s an article about how punk rock is getting on the bandwagon we’re been pushing ever since I got here in 2002. Namely the one that says YES to the troops while standing fast with NO to the wars.

Now all this is big news to me, for a couple reasons, including 1) I could never understand the lyrics, if that’s the right word, of punk songs; and 2) I only listened to that stuff when my beloved son, now almost 30, seized control of my car’s CD/tape player, Back in His Day (not to be confused with that golden age, Back in THE Day).

But every little step helps, so if it’s good enough for Army Times and their readers, it okay by me.

And it’s worth quoting here, at some length. (You can’t really read it online unless you’re a subscriber.)

New generation of musicians shows support for military, but retains anti-war tradition
By Matt Schild

Punk rock used to be so nice, reli­able and predictable.

For decades, its almost religious suspicion of the military-industri­al complex was one of a handful of notions upon which its followers could agree.

Now, after 30 years ― the last nine with overseas military action ― the genre’s latest generation of movers and shakers are abandoning the traditional black-and-white opposition to all things military to fine-tune their criticism.

You’ll still be hard-pressed to find a gang of three-chord warriors who’ll be scheduling a tour stop at the Pentagon, but punk’s icy relationship with service members has thawed considerably in the past decade. Grizzled veterans such as Henry Rollins and The Vandals broke with expectations to perform in Iraq and Afghanistan for troops. Top-tier acts like Rancid, The Dropkick Murphys and Bouncing Souls have penned songs in tribute to today’s men and women at war. Even Rise Against, who caused a stir this fall after refusing to headline a show that would be played on a stage sponsored by Army re­cruiters, provided the USO with stacks of tickets to hand out to service members on its tour this summer.

After decades of confusing the two, punk is starting to grapple with the sub­tle distinction between opposing the war and opposing the veteran.

“With the old issues of punk rock, I’d like to believe that it was never about the soldiers; it was always about the gov­ernment,” explains Dropkick Murphys bagpiper Scruffy Wallace, who served with the infantry in the Canadian mili­tary. “That’s what the punk legends have always stood on, saying how much the government can [expletive] themselves.” That’s a sea change in punk bands’ position on military service. British acts with their roots in punk’s 1977 heyday, like The Clash, spared sol­diers little sympathy. Ameri­ca’s early adopters ― such as the Dead Kennedys ― echoed those sentiments. In fact, most mod­ern bands are just as belliger­ently pro-peace as their forefa­ thers. They’re just learning to distinguish policy from those whose job it is to carry out orders.

“I think it’s an important distinction to make,” Rise Against frontman Tim McIl­rath says, “because what it does is … em­power people to not be afraid to speak their mind about the war and what’s going on while still being able to support their brother or their sister or their mother or their father who is a proud member of the armed forces.” For many acts, they k now what it’s like to have a family that served. McIlrath’s father fought in Vietnam; his grandfather is also a vet. Rancid singer/guitarist Tim Armstrong’s brother retired from a career with the Army, and punk-folkie Tim Barry came from a line that included veterans of Vietnam, Korea and World War II.

“To betray the soldiers is betraying my family,” Barry says. “To not look at each person as an individual who made those decisions on their own or at the encour­agement of their community or as a re­sponse to something tragic that hap­pened, such as 9/11, would be to skew the reality of the situation.” Exposure to the troops eroded some of the antipathy toward the military for New Jersey’s Bouncing Souls. A Euro­pean tour brought the act to Schwein­furt, Germany, where the band played to soldiers on the verge of ship­ping to Iraq in the early stages of the war.

“I just couldn’t wrap my head around why anyone would do it or want to go there,” singer Greg Attonito says is reflection. “Then I met those guys and I could understand.” The Dropkick Murphys took a similar angle on “Last Letter Home,” a tune in­spired by fan Marine Sgt. Andrew Farrar and his final communication with his family, sent a couple weeks before he was scheduled to return to the States.

The song was especially poignant for Wallace, a combat veteran himself.

“I know how hard it is coming back from combat, just trying to adapt to being in civilian life again,” he says.

Even the new breed of troop-friendly punk still rages at the machines that send men and women into war.

“Activists and punk rockers haven’t changed their tactics since Vietnam,” Barry says. “Let’s be realistic about this: There’s very little validity in walking around with a sign on a stick with a peace symbol. Everybody has to accli­mate and adjust to new situations.” “It is ridiculous to have someone say, ‘I don’t agree with this war. I think we should pull out.’ And then be, like, ‘So, what you’re saying is that you hate my brother in the Army?’ ” McIlrath says.

“It’s this kind of rhetoric that is designed to silence people, which is very un­American in itself.” □

Thanks for the positive feedback on the Quaker Christmas story, “Candles In The Window.”.

There’s more to come. Next month, we’ll have another story, one that’s semi-autobiographical. Watch for it after the New Year holiday . . . .

(If you missed it, the story starts here.)

Canadian wildflowers

In the current health-care melee, we hear much alarmist talk and Canada-bashing, aimed at their single-payer health system.

A few days back, I had an unexpected chance to observe the Canadian system up close. What I saw was very instructive.

Here’s what happened: on the last evening of a Toronto visit, I was invited to dinner by a young couple – let’s call them Hank and Sue, for privacy.

Driving there, my cell buzzed. It was Hank, just home from work as a bicycle messenger: Sue was at the emergency room with Teddy, their seven year-old. He had broken his elbow in a playground fall. Hank was headed there; dinner was off.

Not so fast, said I. Let me pick you up and tag along. I could be moral support; and I had some bread, cheese and blueberries in a bag which might come in handy.

In fact, these snacks became our dinner. After relieving Sue, who took their fussy baby daughter home, Hank and I settled in with Teddy, to wait.

Waiting – that’s one of the big knocks on Canadian health care. Teddy, arm in a makeshift sling, grimaced with pain but bore up bravely, watching a Harry Potter DVD. Hank and I grazed and caught up, and wondered what was taking so long.

Turned out there were two factors.

The first emerged when the chaplain dropped in. A Quebecer, we were just starting to chat about my favorite Canadian topic, Anglo-French issues, when her beeper chirped.

Glancing down at it, she frowned. “Sorry, got to go.” Then, out of Teddy’s earshot, “A child may be about to die.” She hurried out.

So. Reason Number One was that ER basic: triage. Teddy was hurt and hurting, but in no danger. Life-and-death cases properly came first.

And we weren’t just left in limbo. A pediatric social worker came in several times, both to keep us posted and to distract Teddy when an IV was put in. She was, I noted, very good at both.

Reason Number Two became clear about nine o’clock, when finally it was show time: to reassemble Teddy’s elbow involved a team of six, including an orthopedist, an anesthetist, a physician, X-ray tech, nurse and the social worker. In a big, busy hospital, getting this much expertise into the same room at the same time, ad hoc, was a challenge.

Once there, though, they made quick work of it, cast and all. Then it was only a matter of monitoring Teddy’s recovery from the anesthetic. It was near four AM when I dropped them off; but it was done.

With four kids, I’ve had my share of ER visits. What did this unplanned field reconnaissance in the Canadian version reveal?

Two things above all:

First, I saw Teddy receive excellent, family-sensitive care.

And second, I observed how a personal injury did not become a family financial disaster.

Hank’s messenger job is a no-frills, tough times gig: no sick days or bennies. In the US, that would mean no health insurance.

In Toronto, their out of pocket cost was zero. Here, his son’s ordeal would have set off jingling cash registers at every step: ambulance, ka-ching; ER visit, ka-ching; IV, X-rays, sedation, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. Not to mention the social worker and orthopedist: ka-double-ching!

In the US, when Hank got home, he would have carried not only his sleepy son, but a hospital bill of many thousands, likely five figures.

Hank and Sue are seriously thrifty folks: no mortgage, no car, no credit card balances. But down here, Teddy’s accident would have crushed their discipline under a pile of medical debt.

Of course, there’s no free lunch. Hank and Canadians pay for their care with higher taxes than here; I’m told that their wealthy even pay more.

That’s what I witnessed.

So now, all you Canada-bashers, please line up to the right. And tell me again just how such a system is a godless socialist plot to destroy civilization.

Have at it. After all, who am I supposed to believe – you, or my lying eyes?

By Chuck Fager

Dear Friends,

One of the finest, most eloquent ministers of this generation of liberal Quakers has left us. William J. “Bill” Kreidler, of Beacon Hill Meeting in Boston, died on June 10, 2000. This is a time to mourn, and also a time to remember, and to pay tribute, which is what I want to do here

Of Bill’s biography, I know only a few scattered facts: He was from a farm community in western New York, and grew up in the Dutch Reformed Church. He began college in Buffalo and finished in Boston, where he became a public school teacher. He was gay. He wrote books about conflict resolution in schools, and did consulting with school systems on violence prevention. Where and how he came to Friends I don’t know; but he was a founding member of Beacon Hill Meeting.

My first memory of Bill is from St. Lawrence University, at the FGC Gathering of 1984. I was leading a workshop, my first for FGC, on the Basics of Bible Study, and he was in it.

Well, partway in it anyhow. As I recall, he spent most of those weekday mornings perched on the sill of an open window, there on the second or third floor of our old classroom building. I didn’t think he was going to jump out; it was brutally hot, the building was not air-conditioned, and he was trying to breathe.

But at the same time, he did seem to be keeping a safe distance, a space between him and the dangerous book I was waving around, and maybe the bearded breeder who was waving it as well.

During the workshop we spent a lot of time reading aloud the story of David, Jonathan, Saul, and Jonathan’s crippled son, Mephibosheth, as I had culled it from the First and Second books of Samuel. This is a gripping, mournful story, which I called “The Bible as Soap Opera,” and perhaps it went on too long, especially given the weather.

But all through it, there is a clear image of Bill, still on the windowsill, head cocked to one side, paying close attention as we plowed through this saga of love, betrayal, death, and loyalty beyond death. Glancing over at Bill from time to time, I wondered if something about it was sinking in. I now think that it was.

Three years later, Bill and I met again at FGC, this time in Oberlin, Ohio. The weather was better that week, and we sat down on a green lawn and asked each other how we were doing. My story was pretty routine, but Bill had a saga of his own. He was, he said candidly, coming out of a bad relationship and a long cocaine addiction. He had found the support and love there, especially among the gay Friends, to make a turn toward the twelve steps. Things were looking up.

There was much more to this remarkable story, but I didn’t hear it until a few years later, when someone gave me a tape of Bill’s keynote talk at the 1989 Midwinter Gathering of Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. On the tape I heard a polished storyteller, but one who was using his talents and gifts for something far beyond a mere performance.

“I’m 36 years old,” he began, “and I’ve finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

“I want to be an old Quaker lady.”

Over the laughter, he continued:

“I don’t say this lightly; I have thought long and hard about growing up to be Gene Kelly. I never learned to tap dance, though — at least not yet.”

As the chuckles died down, he explained that “old Quaker ladies” weren’t necessarily either old, Quaker, or even ladies; this image was a metaphor for a kind of spiritual centeredness that he had lost, and was now slowly, painfully working to regain. “This is a really pitiful story,” he remarked about halfway through. “I tell it well, but it’s a really pitiful story.”

The twelve step pilgrimage he recounted was familiar in outline; it retold, as most of them do, the story of “Amazing Grace,” lived out: he once was lost, in a maze of drugs, alcohol, and abuse; but now he was being found. Some of his specifics were new, though, especially when he got to the part about a spiritual awakening. In his report of it there was, as I expected, some mention of familiar Quaker names, Fox and Woolman; but more important, it turned out that Bill had discovered, or been discovered by, some of the key women saints in the western mystical tradition, especially Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila.

“Terry and Julie,” he called them, making us laugh, but not making a joke of it. They too, had remarkable stories, which meant a reat deal to him. He had been taken on what became a long-term version of what Douglas Steere calls “the journey in,” by way of prayer and related spiritual disciplines. He wasn’t sure where it was leading him. He wasn’t sure how it all fit together. But it did. And he was willing to let us in on it.

Even on my tinny old tape player, the eloquence and depth of Bill’s presentation–his witness, really– still comes through clearly, more than a decade later. It was a sermon, but like few I had ever heard: equal parts polished standup comedy, wrenching personal confession, and straight-out preaching, it was at once ego-tripping and deeply humble, and entirely compelling.

Further, while many of the religious themes of Bill’s talk were traditional, their context was not: for him, the saving community had been, not a conventional church or even a meeting, but rather the group, Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns (FLGC).

While by 1989 FLGC was essentially an accepted presence at the annual FGC Gatherings, this acceptance was still relatively new, and not uncontroversial. Furthermore, FLGC, like all other such groups, was feeling the impact of the AIDS epidemic, and the ramifications of this crisis were still sinking in.

One of these ramifications was the targeting of gay and lesbian groups as a locus of personal and social evil by powerful and very vocal forces in society at large. To have a member of such a group describe it so convincingly as a vehicle of personal salvation was very much at variance from this reverberating chorus, and Bill’s audience was very moved by his affirmation of it.

Not that there was any politics in his talk. Rather, one of the points he most wanted to make was that, “As lesbians and gays, I think that joy is one of the things that we have to offer. And I don’t just mean that we have better taste and more fun. Although of course, we do.”

When he closed with by evoking an image of FLGC at its best as, “a room full of old Quaker ladies, and they all were tap-dancing,” it’s a safe bet there was hardly a dry eye in the meetinghouse.

Whether Bill knew it then or not, talks like this soon launched him on what Friends call a public ministry. He was already well-known in educational circles as a consultant to schools on conflict resolution and violence prevention. This was a job he had essentially created for himself, growing out of his work as a schoolteacher in tough Boston public schools. Soon he was combining this work with his ministry among and to Friends.

Update by Chuck Fager

Wichita, KS — On this Friday the 13th, U.S. Judge Monti Belot accepted Priscilla Deters’ plan for remaining free on bail until her sentencing, but imposed tough restrictions on the now convicted felon, and spoke darkly of her likely jail sentence. Belot also predicted that there might be additional prosecutions in the multimillion dollar church fraud case.

Belot set bond for Deters at $200,000, and gave her until today to post it. Rather than come up with that amount herself, Deters made arrangements with a bonding company, to which she was obliged to pay a reported twelve percent of the total, $24,000, as a fee which will not be returned. The source of the $24,000 was not made public.

This bail fee could be thought of as a kind of rent; it buys Deters about nine weeks of freedom. Belot set the sentencing date for May 22, and reiterated his intention to send Deters to jail at that time, not waiting for any appeal.

In addition to the steep bail amount, Belot set tough restrictions on Deters for this period: He ordered her not to have any contact with her victims or investors, and to cease any efforts to raise funds. He also ordered that Deter’s identical twin sister, Phyllis Beaver, be required to surrender her passport.

This was due to the sisters’ close physical resemblance, which the judge regarded as increasing the potential risk of flight. When Deters’ attorney, Steve Gradert, said Deters had told him her sister did not have a passport, the judge retorted that he did not believe anything Deters said, and insisted that government passport records be examined.

Deters was also directed not to leave her home area–except, the judge added, to answer any additional indictments. Deters defrauded churches and persons in 21 states. There are reports that Kansas federal prosecutors have been contacted by prosecutors in other states, regarding use of the extensive body of evidence they obtained and introduced at the trial.

Future prosecutions might not be limited to Priscilla Deters alone. Judge Belot noted that Deters had been aided by several other persons in her fraud scheme, and he said these other persons, included both family members and Quaker pastor Randy Littlefield, a defense witness whom Belot scorned as “despicable.” All, he declared, were “candidates for indictment.”

Deters’ future, according to the judge, is bleak. Under federal law, she could receive as much as four years for each of the twelve counts on which she was convicted. Belot said that in passing sentence, he would take into account the number of her victims, the amounts involved, her extensive efforts to obstruct investigations into her activities, and her lack of any signs of remorse. He stated that Deters, who is 63, would likely spend the rest of her life in prison.

Update by Chuck Fager

Wichita, Kansas — Throughout the eight days of testimony in the Priscilla Deters-Productions Plus trial, U.S. District Judge Monti Belot was a model of judicial impartiality.

He reminded the jury that the defendant was presumed innocent, that she did not have to prove anything, and that they were not to draw negative inferences from her decision not to testify. Before they left to deliberate, he instructed jurors that her good faith and character alone would be sufficient reasons to find her not guilty.

Deters was originally charged with fourteen counts of wire and mail fraud, in connection with a church fundraising scheme that cost its victims almost $6.5 million, including over $400,000 from Cherokee area residents. Two of the counts were later dismissed by the prosecution.

Early Friday afternoon, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on all twelve remaining counts, after deliberating about three hours.

Once the verdict was rendered, Belot held a hearing on whether to allow Deters to remain free on bail until she is sentenced. At the hearing, Belot shed his air of impartiality, and became a tower of seething judicial wrath.

When defense counsel Steve Gradert began to explain that Deters had some supporters who were willing to co-sign a surety bond for her, Belot interrupted to reject this gesture as “a worthless promise. After the testimony I’ve heard,” he continued, “their signatures don’t mean anything to me.”

One of the proffered co-signers was George Brown, a retired clergyman and educator who had been in Wichita with Deters throughout the trial. Brown was on the board of a trust Deters set up in the early 1990s, which supposedly oversaw her program of “matching gifts” to church groups.

But under withering cross-examination by government attorneys, Brown admitted that he had loaned Deters over $200,000, much of which has not been repaid, that he knew virtually nothing of the actual operations of Productions Plus beyond what she told him, and that many of her activities disclosed by government evidence would have been clearly improper.

Gradert attempted to reassure the judge, insisting that Deters was unlikely to pose any physical danger to others, and was unlikely to flee.

Again Belot angrily brushed aside his efforts. “I can tell you right now,” he said, “there will be no conditions of release that will not include a substantial professional surety,” or bail.

Deters was indicted in December of 1996. After her arraignment on the charges, bail was set at $25,000, and she was released on her own recognizance, which means she did not have to put up any funds or property to guarantee the bail. Judge Belot made clear today that this situation would not continue.

“This woman is a risk to any honest person,” Belot thundered, “and that makes her a risk to the community.”

He declared that he would set bail at not less than $250,000, “and probably higher than that.” “This woman stole millions of dollars,” Belot continued, “and some of that has not been accounted for. I’ll make sure that not a penny of any bail that is posted is made up of any of the money that she stole.”

Presumably this would mean Deters could not offer her house in Walnut, California as surety, because government evidence indicated she had made many mortgage payments on it with funds from her “investors.” It might also prevent her family members from assisting her, inasmuch as trial evidence likewise showed she had spent at least $800,000 on her sons and other family expenses.

In addition, all of Deters assets are in the custody of a receiver appointed by a California state court to distribute them among her victims, which include churches and individuals in twenty-one states. However, the receiver, attorney Richard Clements of Signal Hill, has told this reporter that after two and a half years in that position, he has yet to recover any assets.

Belot continued the bond hearing until Monday, to give Deters and her attorneys time to develop a plan by which she might be able to remain free until the sentencing. Defense counsel indicated that sentencing usually takes place not less than seventy days after a trial, during which time a sentencing investigation is conducted and a report prepared.

Whether or not Deters can figure out a way to persuade Belot to leave her at liberty until then, the judge left her in no doubt as to his intentions.

“I’ll guarantee you, Mrs. Deters,” he said to her, “you better bring your toothbrush when you come for sentencing, because I’m going to send you to jail.”

To Gradert he added, “She doesn’t have a prayer on appeal. She had a fair trial, and there’s not a single issue of any substance for an appeal. She’s been found guilty, and is guilty. So she may as well start serving her sentence right now. I have heard nothing during this trial to convince me that she is anything but a crook, of the first water.”

According to the federal statutes involved, Deters could receive up to four years in prison for each guilty count, and a fine of up to $250,000.

Gradert explained in an interview that actual sentencing decisions are governed by an elaborate set of federal sentencing guidelines. Such factors as the amount of money involved, the number of victims, the intricacy of the conspiracy, and so forth are calculated and a score developed.

The higher the score, the longer the likely range of sentence. Judges exercise their discretion within the range set by the calculations under the guidelines.

During the trial, Steve Gradert tried repeatedly to suggest that Deters was being “framed” by other witnesses in the trial, to cover up their own thefts and fraud. He targeted especially Maurice Roberts, former Superintendent of Mid-America Yearly Meeting.

While waiting for the bail hearing to begin, I asked Gradert about this: Why the frequent insinuations, but not any actual evidence?

He grinned ruefully and shook his head. “Hey,” he said, “if I’d had any evidence, don’t you think I would have introduced it?”

Update by Chuck Fager

Wichita, Kansas — Nine women and three men are now to decide Priscilla Deters’ fate.

Was her Productions Plus business, as prosecutor Annette Gurney charged in her closing remarks Thursday, “just a scam”?

Or was it, as defense counsel Steve Gradert put it, the sincere but failed effort of “an honest, hardworking Christian woman”?

Judge Monti Belot’s instructions made clear that the issue of purpose is the heart of the case. Whether Deters had an “intent to defraud” the church groups and members who poured $6.5 million into her business accounts, is now up to the jury to determine.

Lead prosecutor Annette Gurney spoke to jurors across a large table piled high with documents–checks, bank statements, trust forms, letters, memos and faxes, stretching back to 1990. These were the government’s exhibits, reams of evidence which Gurney claimed proves that “Priscilla Deters lied,” repeatedly and criminally to her clients, in “a scheme and artifice to defraud.”

She lied, Gurney contended, when she told them she had millions of dollars in a trust fund to distribute. She lied when she told them their investments would be kept safe in CDs. She lied about having profitable businesses to finance her matching gift program. And she lied, Gurney repeated, when she told them she would double their investments in a year, without risk.

Deters also failed to tell her clients many things, Gurney continued. She didn’t tell her clients that she was spending their money on her personal expenses, or her children, or care for her aged mother.

“Hindsight is always 20-20,” Gurney said, “and you may ask yourselves, how could anyone fall for a scam like this?”

The evidence showed Deters used referrals, Gurney said, recommendations from prominent figures in church circles, some of whom served on “a bogus board of trustees.” The prosecutor charged that Deters misled many groups by sending them altered copies of CDs, on which their names had been typed. Deters also sent them regular “beneficiary reports,” showing large amounts of “matching funds” in nonexistent accounts.

In light of this, Gurney said, “it’s not so astonishing that the church groups fell for her scam.” Then she took aim at a key defense witness.

“What’s astonishing,” Gurney insisted, “is that Randy Littlefield could take this [witness] stand, after he signed up so many people in Cherokee for the program, after he signed up his church in League City, Texas, after he signed up his own mother–that he could take this stand and can tell you how honest she is.

“Now that’s astonishing,” Gurney said. “All Deters was, was a shrewd, calculating thief.”

When Gurney finished, defense counsel Steve Gradert rose to insist that the evidence showed nothing of the sort. Quoting a character in the Paul Newman movie “Cool Hand Luke,” he said that, “‘what we have here is a failure to communicate.’”

Gradert reminded the jury that he had asked almost every witness on both sides of the case whether Deters was a difficult person to understand when she talked, and invariably they said she was. Misunderstanding was compounded, he continued, by “a lot of people in this case who were greedy, who let their greed overcome their understanding of what was being said.”

These greedy misunderstandings were spread widely, Gradert said, by persons who may have been pursuing their own private interests and profit.

Gradert identified three such possible culprits: Maurice Roberts, former Superintendent of the Mid-America Yearly Meeting of Friends Church, Charles Crosby, Deters’ onetime sales representative, and R.J. Wegner, the Nazarene Church Superintendent for North and South Dakota. Roberts was forced to resign by Kansas Quakers in 1994 when the program collapsed and the yearly meeting faced losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Deters fired Crosby for what she said were his misrepresentations of her program. And Wegner’s Dakota Nazarenes lost over $500,000 on Productions Plus.

All three testified last week as witnesses for the prosecution.

“Randy Littlefield may have sold his mother on this program,” Gradert argued, “but he had faith in the program as a covenant. He has more credibility in this case than Maurice Roberts or R. J. Wegner. They didn’t understand the program, or they took advantage of it,” said, adding that, “we don’t know whether they personally got money out of the program.”

Gradert recounted how Wegner urged his pastors to borrow money from their own members to get in on Deters’ program. “And when the state issued a cease and desist order, Wegner started funneling the money to his pastor friend in California. He says it was Deters’ idea, but he did it.”

Gradert then took particular aim at Roberts. “Nobody ever checked Maurice Roberts’ bank accounts,” he said. “How much credibility can he have?”

He noted that Roberts’ latest employer, Philip Harmon, pled guilty last year to fraud charges in an insurance and investment scam that cost victims almost $40 million dollars. “Is it a coincidence that Maurice Roberts is around all this fraud?” Gradert asked. “I submit he’s lying to you when he says the Priscilla Deters misled him about her program.”

“In a case like this,” Gradert concluded, “which turns on intention, I submit that you have to look at character.”

He then reminded them that several of Deters’ friends and supporters had testified to her honesty. “She still owes many of them money, and yet they continue to believe in her. The government will tell you that they’re scared they won’t let their money back. But I submit it is because they know her and know her character. I submit this makes for a reasonable doubt, which should lead you to a not guilty verdict.”

Prosecutor Allen Metzger had the last word. “Good character can be a defense in a fraud case,” he acknowledged. “But here, the defendant’s character doesn’t stand alone. It stands in the piercing light of the evidence, documentary evidence. And what representations did the defendant make regarding the assets in her trust account? Five million dollars at one time, fifteen million another time.

“But what do the facts show? She opened one of her trust accounts with exactly one penny. And she opened the other with $150.”

“The question of greed has been raised by the defense,” he said. “I’m glad it has been raised.” He repeated the prosecution’s figures which showed Deters spending almost three million dollars on personal, family and business expenses, insisting, “She did not tell one person that that’s where she was spending that money.”

“She sent investors beneficiary reports which identified their money as being ‘non-expendable,’ but she spent it. And if so, good faith is not a defense.”

The jury was sent out to begin its preliminary work at 4:35 PM, and is expected to deliberate in earnest beginning Friday morning.

Update by Chuck Fager

Wichita, Kansas — Amid legal wrangling over an investigator’s report and a son’s testimony on behalf of his mother, the defense in the Priscilla Deters-Productions Plus case rested its case on Wednesday.

Deters is charged with 13 federal counts of wire and mail fraud, in connection with a church fundraising plan that authorities call a fraudulent Ponzi scheme. Her attorneys have labored to portray her as an honest Christian businesswoman whose companies ran into legal and funding obstacles.

Kansas state investigator Gary Fulton, who presented much of the evidence in the prosecution’s case last week, was put back on the stand Wednesday morning, as defense attorneys called into question his report of where Deters spent more than $6,400,000 of investors’ money between 1990 and 1995.

Fulton conducted a search of Deters’ home in December, 1994. The search yielded six boxes of documents, including checks and bank records. Based on these records, Fulton prepared a chart for the jury which showed that only a little over $2,000,000 was returned to investors, while $3,000,000 was spent on Deters’ family and other business expenses.

Defense counsel Steve Gradert pointed to $986,000 of receipts classified as “unknown” by Fulton, and asked if these could not in fact have been profits from her business.

“If there were business profits,” Fulton answered, “I couldn’t find them. These could be personal loans; a lot of people loaned her money. But if your question is, could I positively say there were no revenues? I don’t know.”

In rebuttal, Prosecutor Allen Metzger reviewed Fulton’s work establishing that funds from later investors were used to pay “matching gifts” to earlier investors, which constitutes a Ponzi scheme. “Based on these records,” Metzger asked, “did you form an opinion as to whether this was a Ponzi scheme?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“She was running a Ponzi scheme,” Fulton insisted. “That’s all it was.”

The final defense witness was Deters’ son Loren. Loren Deters, 28, told the court he often heard his mother talking about the nature of her businesses while he was growing up in their house in Walnut, California, until he went college in Berkeley in August of 1991. But when defense counsel Steve Gradert asked him to describe how the business worked, prosecutors objected strenuously and repeatedly that his report would be irrelevant hearsay.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot was also uneasy. He sent the jury out, then conducted an extended conference with the attorneys over whether federal rules of evidence permitted the son to be thus questioned repeatedly about what his mother said.

“If all we’re going to hear is what the defendant told him about this and that,” Belot declared, “I have real problems with that.”

Gradert argued that because the younger Deters had lived in a house with is mother over an extended period, and had worked in the business while a student, his knowledge was more firsthand than typical hearsay.

Belot ultimately ruled that some of these statements would be allowed, but cautioned that, “I won’t allow the defendant to put in her exculpatory testimony through this witness.”

Loren Deters then stated that his mother’s business was built on joint fundraising ventures with nonprofit groups. The group put up some money to help finance a particular fundraising event or program; Mrs. Deters then organized and conducted the program, in cooperation with the sponsoring group; and then she and the group split the proceeds, if any.

Gradert asked if Priscilla Deters had described the goal of this program.

“Yes, was the reply. “It was to help nonprofit groups.”

Gradert’s next question was, “Loren, do you love your mother?” “Yes,” he replied. “With all my heart.”

“Would you come in here and lie for her?”

“No,” Loren answered. “I have a pregnant wife back home, and I wouldn’t do anything to mess that up.”

Asked if he had an opinion about his mother’s character, he said she was, “Incredibly kind-hearted, incredibly honest, and a lot of people misunderstand her.”

Cross-examination was brief and pointed. After establishing the Loren Deters knew little about the difference after leaving for college in 1991, Prosecutor Allen Metzger bored in on the difference between what he had heard and what his mother had written to her client groups.

“You knew the business from firsthand experience prior to August, 1991,” Metzger said. “Even then, your mother didn’t show you the written documents she was sending to the nonprofit groups, did she?

“No.”

“You didn’t go with her on trips when she talked with these groups?”

“No.”

After her son’s testimony, the defense was faced with a crucial decision: whether or not Priscilla Deters herself would testify. Under federal rules, she could not be forced to take the stand. But without her direct testimony, the defense could not be sure it had gotten her version of her career to the jury.

After a long recess in which she and her attorneys huddled in a conference room, the session resumed to hear Gradert announce, “The defense rests.”

Belot later told the jury to expect closing arguments and instructions Thursday afternoon.