Baltimore Church Accuses Its Former Leader of Improper Financial Dealings

A venerated Baptist church in Baltimore has joined a suit against an ex-minister who the church says committed fraud in trying to claim ownership of church property for his own gain, reports The Baltimore Sun.

The Union Baptist Church tore down nine row houses to construct a daycare center in the mid 1990s, but when it failed to pay taxes on some of the land, the city sold the land at a tax sale. The Rev. Vernon N. Dobson, then the church’s leader, intervened and worked out a deal in which he personally took over the deed for $12,000.

Mr. Dobson, 83, a noted civil-rights advocate, sued the city claiming that the deed, which covered just part of the land, should cover all of it. He also sought $15-million in damages.

Church officials, angry and embarrassed, threw him out of the pulpit and joined his opponents in the court battle.

Mr. Dobson declined to be interviewed for the article, but one of his associates, who was also named in the lawsuit, said neither man has sought personal financial benefits from the deal.