March 11, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
A Florida jury has found the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, guilty of theft and racketeering under state law.
The same jury acquitted Bernice Edwards, an aide to Mr. Lyons, of racketeering charges.
During a six-week trial, prosecutors argued that Mr. Lyons — the group’s president since 1994 — and Ms. Edwards had swindled corporations out of millions of dollars by inflating the convention’s membership and selling phony membership lists. The denomination — among the nation’s largest black churches — has claimed as many as 8.5 million members. Prosecutors estimate that there are as few as 1 million members.
Mr. Lyons was also convicted of pocketing $244,500 that the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith gave him to distribute to local congregations in the South whose churches were damaged or destroyed by arson attacks.
Prosecutors said Mr. Lyons used that money and other ill-gotten gains — totaling as much as $4-million — to pay for luxury automobiles, expensive homes, and other perquisites.
Mr. Lyons is expected to receive from three to eight years in prison at his sentencing this month. He is also scheduled to face another trial in April on related federal charges of tax evasion, money laundering, extortion, and fraud.
Mr. Lyons’ five-year term as the Baptist group’s president ends in September. Last fall, in the midst of a reported financial crisis in the convention sparked by Mr. Lyons’ legal problems, Mr. Lyons announced that he would run for another term. A lawyer for the president, however, says those plans are now on hold.
Baptist church leaders around the country are split over whether Mr. Lyons should resign his post before his term expires.
