Black Church Official Is Charged with Theft

The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of what may be the nation’s largest black church, the National Baptist Convention USA, was arrested last month in Florida and charged with theft and racketeering under state laws.

Mr. Lyons, who prosecutors say turned the church into a criminal racket shortly after he became president in 1994, posted $100,000 bail and was released. He has denied the charges and remains at the helm of the church.

State investigators say Mr. Lyons swindled corporations out of millions of dollars by inflating the convention’s membership and selling phony membership lists. Among other charges, they also accuse him of diverting money that was intended to restore burned Southern churches and of hiding nearly $5-million in a secret account he used mostly for lavish personal expenses.

The state’s investigation began last summer after Mr. Lyons’s wife set fire to a $700,000 house that Mr. Lyons owned with Bernice Edwards.

Ms. Edwards, a convicted embezzler who worked as the church’s director of corporate relations, was also arrested on theft and racketeering charges.

A separate federal probe of the case is continuing.