Con Man Minkow Convicted. Again. This Time for Cheating Church

Barry Minkow, while the senior pastor at the Community Bible Church in San Diego, 2009.Photograph by Mark Rightmire/The Orange County Register via Zuma Press

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By Paul M. Barrett

January 23, 2014 at 9:31 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

In December we brought you the strange tale of how the publicly traded homebuilder Lennar battled an inventive shakedown scheme. Lennar’s antagonists were a San Diego real estate developer with whom the company had earlier done business amicably and the notorious con man Barry Minkow. A teenage sensation in the 1980s whose ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning business turned out to be a massive fraud, Minkow went to prison (again) for his role in extorting Lennar. Now—surprise—he’s in trouble again.

On Wednesday, Minkow pleaded guilty to embezzling money from the San Diego Community Bible Church, where he had served as pastor after finding God during his earlier prison stint on the ZZZZ Best conviction. Even as Minkow admitted ripping off his spiritual flock, he’s still serving time for the securities fraud violation he confessed to in the Lennar episode. He potentially faces five more years behind bars when he’s sentenced for defrauding the church.