Church-related investments sink savings

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Instead of more than $100,000 in retirement savings, Horace Gill has a pile of worthless paper.

“One-hundred-twenty thousand dollars is a lot of money,” the Albuquerque man said. “I mean, I worked hard. I worked three jobs.”

Gill told KRQE News 13 that an investment company related to a San Francisco, Calif.-based church lost his life savings in real estate deals that promised returns as high as 35 percent. Based on his complaint and others, the California Department of Corporations last summer ordered the company to stop selling securities.

“They tried to bluff and scare those people,” Gill said. “‘God took your money.’ That’s what they was telling them.  ‘God caused you to lose it.’”

Michael Parker, a leader of the General Assembly Church and former CEO of Daystar Investments, appealed the California decision and said Gill’s complaints are a case of sour grapes.

“I have heard these types of things before, and sometimes when people get angry, I’ve noticed they’ll latch on to something someone has said, you know, whatever it takes to get the issue more attention,” Parker said. “But that’s not who we are.”

The situation began back in 1989 when Gill started attending the church in San Francisco.

“(I met) nice people,” he said. “(I had) true friendship with some of the people.”

After several years, Parker offered the investment opportunity in Daystar Investments. Beginning in 2002, Gill invested $120,000 – his life savings – in the company.

In 2005, Gill moved to Albuquerque to retire and help start a local branch of the General Assembly Church near Coors Boulevard NW and Interstate 40. A year later, Gill asked to take his money out of the investment fund to pay for retirement expenses, only to find out the money didn’t exist.

He said he spent a year calling, e-mailing and sending letters to Daystar to no avail. He got no response and no money. According to documents he showed News 13, the company owes Gill about $175,000.

“Nobody ever (knew) what happened to the money,” he said. “We never got an answer. What happened to the money?”

After discovering his money was gone, Gill said he began to question the church’s motives.

“It’s like you’re getting rocked to sleep and you don’t know it – with that doctrine, his doctrine …” he said. “I think it’s not a church. It lines up almost like a cult.

“They actually tell you about the world. You can’t be a part of the world. If you go outside these doors, that’s the world. Your job is strictly to go to work. Don’t be mingling.”

Gill said he was just one of hundreds of people in California and Albuquerque who lost their savings.

“I couldn’t say how much, but it was a lot of money,” he said. “It was in the millions, and nobody today never know what happened to the money.”

The order from the California Department of Corporations states that Daystar may have “included an untrue statement of a material fact …”

Parker, the church leader, blamed the losses on a real estate market that cratered and said he did nothing wrong.

“When you talk about fraud, the church being some cult, I have a problem with that,” he said. “First thing I would say is, ‘I understand and I’m sorry for how things turned out, but it wasn’t in my control.’”

A decision on his appeal in California is expected within the month.