About halfway through the almost two-hour Easter service, Dan Cogdell, Caldwell’s legal counsel, paced the stage in front of the white-robed choir and shouted to the cheering congregation, “I know the truth and the truth will set him free!”
Thousands of worshipers at a Methodist megachurch in Houston didn’t expect to hear from their pastor’s lawyer on Easter morning.
The special guest dropped in to speak days after Kirbyjon Caldwell—a prominent Texas pastor and former spiritual adviser to presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama—was charged with more than a dozen crimes in an alleged fraud scheme.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleges that Caldwell and his financial planner misled investors out of $3.5 million through the sale of shady Chinese bonds. Caldwell maintains his innocence and plans to fight the charges.
In Holy Week services across Houston, fellow African American pastors and Caldwell’s own 16,000-member congregation, Windsor Village, enthusiastically came to his defense.
About halfway through the almost two-hour Easter service, Dan Cogdell, Caldwell’s legal counsel, paced the stage in front of the white-robed choir and shouted to the cheering congregation, “I know the truth and the truth will set him free!”
Cogdel said the case prompted him to open the Bible and see the parallels between Caldwell’s situation and Christ himself.
“I read last night that Jesus was tried for several offenses, and acquitted of all but one,” he told Windsor Village, an African American megachurch that ranks as one of the biggest in the United Methodist denomination. “The one crime he was found guilty of was claiming falsely to be the Son of God. Think of the irony of that.”
Caldwell and his adviser, Gregory Alan Smith, face 13 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering for allegedly misguiding 29 investors between April 2013 and August 2014. The two were indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in the Western District of Louisiana.
Caldwell, whose company is said to have kept $2 million, is accused of using his standing in the church to convince people to buy in. He has stated that no church members were involved, and that he has returned nearly $1 million to dissatisfied parties.
The investment in question is a type of historic Chinese bond that the SEC considers “mere historic memorabilia,” with no possibility of the 15-fold returns Caldwell and Smith promised. Smith had faced former accusations of financial mismanagement and had been barred from deals with Financial Industry Regulatory Authority members.
“Sometimes, when you’re on your way to the Promised Land, you have a painful pit stop, and this is just that,” Caldwell told his congregation on Easter morning.
He went on to say he is not guilty and has evidence that the bonds were authentic, despite the SEC claims. Caldwell choked up when asking the congregation to pray for his wife, who also serves as a minister at Windsor Village, and his kids.
“Of all the allegations and accusations, the one that frankly perturbs me most is the accusal that [I] took advantage of people,” said Caldwell, a former investment banker. “I’ve spent 36 years helping people, not hurting people.”
With a theology degree from Southern Methodist University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Caldwell has always operated as both a pastor and a businessman (as he writes about in his books The Gospel of Good Success and Entrepreneurial Faith).
