He titled his last sermon “Reckless Faith.”
Rodney McGill, a pastor of New Hope Outreach Center in Jensen Beach, was arrested last week on mortgage fraud, racketeering and grand theft charges.
His tools: bogus loan applications, a sputtering housing market and a Christian radio show.
The drug-dealer-turned-pastor used his local radio show to lure his followers into a promotion he called the “Fab 5″: a few, select listeners could learn how to flip houses in Martin and St. Lucie counties under his guidance. He promised his followers they would earn $50,000 in 90 days without any putting any money down. When they didn’t, he blamed the real estate market downtown in South Florida. The Miami Herald reports:
“The victims, [Florida Department of Financial Services detective] Padich said, bought houses at inflated values that the McGills had purchased months earlier for hundreds of thousands of dollars less.
Padich compared McGill’s dealings to a Ponzi scheme. Victims on the front end were promised a quick return on their investments, and though he satisfied a couple of those promises, others were told the market had taken a downturn and that they would have to wait to get their money back, Padich said.”
McGill’s three clients ended up with more than $1 million in mortgage debt. When his investors became worried, he would remind them he was a pastor and a trusted member of the community.
Ironically, the scam failed to save McGill from the market — his own mortgages were months overdue. McGill denies that he made money off 300 to 400 deals, arguing that he was also a victim of the housing downtown.
