On Nov. 7, 2023, Jonathan Lamb said he felt a nudge in his spirit to check the security feeds at Daystar TV.

As vice president of the worldwide Christian TV network, Lamb had access to all the cameras on Daystar’s property. On one feed, he saw Daystar’s head of security, Shannon Kelly, open the trunk of Jonathan’s company car and reach around inside.

(Video Source: Jonathan Lamb)

At the time, Jonathan’s relationship with his mother, Daystar TV President Joni Lamb, had grown adversarial. So, he immediately suspected Kelly had put a tracker in his car.

Jonathan told El Informe Roys (TRR) he called and confronted Kelly, who denied the notion.

But the next day, a mechanic found a tracker in the trunk.

That was the first time in Daystar’s nearly 30-year history that the ministry had put a tracker in a company vehicle, Jonathan told TRR. But beginning in July 2023, when Jonathan and his wife, Suzy, refused to read a viewer comment praising Joni’s marriage to Doug Weiss, the couple became targets of Joni’s bullying, intimidation, and spying, they say.

After he found the tracker, Jonathan said Joni’s assistant called him and claimed Daystar had put trackers in all company vehicles shortly after the death of Jonathan’s father, Daystar co-founder Marcus Lamb, in November 2021.

Pero Shannon Kelly’s expense report, which Jonathan shared with TRR, shows trackers were purchased almost two years after that, in October 2023.

TRR reached out twice to Daystar, asking when the ministry put the tracker in Jonathan’s car and why, but Daystar did not respond.

On Nov. 16, 2023, Daystar demanded that Jonathan sign an NDA or be stripped of his role as a Daystar executive and board member.

Several months later, Daystar demoted Jonathan and reduced his salary 40%. The ministry also fired both of Suzy’s parents, who were also Daystar employees.

Then, at 5:38 p.m.  on Sept. 6, 2024, Jonathan and Suzy discovered they were being followed by a private investigator. The couple released video to TRR showing a purple car following the couple as they drove with their children on local streets.

Jonathan also gave TRR video of him confronting the man driving the purple car at 6:27 p.m. on Sept. 9, 2024. On the video, Jonathan asks the man who he is, and he responds, “an investigator.” The man also says he can’t disclose who hired him.

The car’s license plate is registered to Jameson Bradley Parker, a private investigator. TRR reached out to Daystar twice, specifically asking if the ministry or Joni had hired Parker, but Daystar did not respond.

Jonathan and Suzy say they can’t imagine anyone else who might hire an investigator to tail them.

Yet, Daystar’s heavy-handed tactics have only strengthened the couple’s resolve, they say. And Jonathan said the incident with tracker has convinced him that God is helping him and Suzy expose Daystar.

“The chances of me to feel in my spirit to pull up the cameras at the exact moment—and there’s like over 30 cameras—to have that camera pulled up of the security guard, opening up my trunk, reaching his hand in, and fiddling around the trunk area for a good 30 seconds, I was just like, ‘He put something in my car!’” Lamb told broadcaster Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson la semana pasada.

More demands

Como reported previously by TRR, the relationship between Joni, Jonathan, and Suzy became especially contentious after a meeting in July 2023 when Joni and her ally, jimmy evans, told the couple more than 100 times to submit.

Joni was offended that the couple would not read a viewer comment praising her marriage to Doug Weiss, and told them they could not say no. But the couple believed Weiss lacked biblical grounds to divorce his first wife and refused to back down.

So, Joni fired Suzy.

Two days after the contentious meeting, Jonathan envió un correo electrónico to his mother, confronting her behavior.

“You both (Joni and Evans) emasculated me by saying my wife has ‘my balls in her hands’ (emphasis in original) and you both laughed and mocked us,” Jonathan wrote. “. . . You told me I’m not a good leader and that my wife has no ministry and would have nothing without you and Daystar.”

Jonathan told his mother he would not return to her program, Ministry Now, without his wife. He also asked for a meeting to clarify “where I stand with my choice.”

Joni replied that Jonathan’s email was “a mischaracterization” of the meeting and that she would take some time to pray and seek counsel before scheduling a follow-up meeting.

Jonathan responded that things were “completely out of hand” and “(w)e urgently need to meet about this matter.” However, Joni remained resolute.

About a month later, Jonathan and Suzy met with Daystar board member Tom Calender to express their concerns about Joni’s marriage to Weiss and the way she and Evans had treated the couple, they told TRR.

Initially, Calender shared their concerns about Joni’s marriage, Jonathan told TRR. But Calender completely changed his position after speaking to Joni, Jonathan said.

TRR reached out to Calender for comment, but he did not reply.

Jonathan, Joni, and Calender met several times over the next month without resolving the impasse. Meanwhile, Daystar viewers were asking why Jonathan and Suzy were no longer on TV.

On Sept. 20, 2023, Jonathan and Suzy confirmed on social media that they were not leaving Daystar, but also said they “don’t have a timeline” for when they would be back on air.

Eight days later, Daystar gave Jonathan and Suzy Joni’s 13 requirements for them to return to on-air roles.

This included keeping their opinions about Joni’s marriage and Jimmy Evans to themselves. The list required the couple to get approval from Joni, Calender, and Daystar’s CFO before posting on social media about Daystar.

Joni also demanded that the couple “destroy all recordings of meetings with Jimmy Evans and Joni,” as well as “any recordings of private comments Joni shared with Suzy about sex and marriage involving Doug.”

In return, Joni stated she would not require the couple to endorse her marriage. The couple would also be allowed to return to Ministry Now.

en un Oct. 3 reply, Jonathan called the demands “overreaching . . . and missing essential terms.”

Jonathan then asked that Suzy be reinstated, calling Joni’s abrupt firing of her “petty, harmful, and disappointing.”

He also asked for a contract “that clearly spells out my future role as President of Daystar” with limits on Joni’s ability to fire him without cause.

In return, Jonathan wrote that he and Suzy would not publish audio “that could be harmful or embarrassing to Daystar, Joni or our family.” He also stated that Suzy did not have “recordings of private conversations with Joni.”

The matter was tabled until the board meeting the next month. But in the meantime, two upsetting events happened.

One, Jonathan found the tracker in his company car.

And two, Jonathan said his friend, a local businessman, told him that Joni had disparaged Suzy repeatedly during a lunch with him.

TRR spoke with the friend, who wished to remain anonymous, and he confirmed Jonathan’s account. He said that during the two-hour lunch, Joni told him that Suzy “has a Jezebel spirit” and “has Jonathan by the balls.”

The businessman said Joni also spent about 30 minutes making it clear that she and Weiss had not connected before Marcus’ untimely death.

“The whole purpose of that lunch was to flush me out and see what I knew and see if I could be an ally to get Jonathan in line,” the man told TRR. The man said he did not cooperate.

Before these two events, Jonathan said he felt he and Suzy were making progress with his mother. But these set the stage for a contentious board meeting.

Sign NDA or else

On Nov. 16, 2023, Daystar’s board—Joni, Jonathan, and Calender—met to discuss the issues between Jonathan and Joni. CFO Arnold Torres was there too, and was voted onto the board during the meeting.

Calender firmly rejected Jonathan’s earlier request for a contract. Calender also stated he had not signed a previous succession plan naming Jonathan as Joni’s successor as president, so “that’s not in effect at all.”

For the rest of the meeting, which Jonathan recorded and gave to TRR, Calender, Joni, and Torres tried to compel Jonathan to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). When Jonathan refused, they excused him from the meeting for about 45 minutes.

By the time the board called Jonathan back into the meeting, Daystar attorney John Lynch had joined. For nearly two hours, the board and Lynch badgered Jonathan to sign the NDA.

“If you do not do that (sign the NDA), then you are removing yourself from the board and removing yourself from your vice president position,” Calender states emphatically on the recording.

Lynch adds, “But the real issue is here—everything you’ve said in this room is insubordination. That is an independent ground for . . . you to be fired from your employment.”

Jonathan objects, “But all I’ve said is I won’t sign an NDA.”

“What you just said to the CEO in this room, in my presence—that would be grounds for termination of your employment,” Lynch replies. “You don’t have the right to go challenge the authority of your organization.”

The meeting ended without resolution, other than Calender specifying that Jonathan had 24 hours to decide whether to sign the NDA. Jonathan never signed the NDA. But the board took several months before stripping him of his board and executive status, likely because it was revising Daystar’s bylaws and covering its legal bases before doing so, Jonathan said.

Jonathan learns truth about investigation

Two days after the board meeting, Jonathan and Suzy received news that shocked them and deepened the family rift.

On Nov. 18, 2023, Denise Boggs told the couple that an earlier investigation had not cleared a family member they suspected of abusing their daughter, as Jonathan’s late father Marcus Lamb had told him.

Como TRR reportado, Boggs, a close friend of the Lambs, brought in a forensic counselor to conduct the investigation in August 2021. But before the counselor could interview the suspected family member properly, Marcus and Joni shut down the investigation, Boggs said.

Jonathan said the news that his own father and mother had lied to him was devastating. And from that point on, Jonathan and Suzy said, their battle with Daystar became more about justice for their daughter than saving their jobs.

As previously reported, the couple subsequently took their daughter to a counselor who reported the alleged abuse to Child Protective Services (CPS). CPS then contacted police, who reopened their investigation into the alleged abuse.

On Nov. 30, 2023, Daystar told Suzy’s mother, Tanuja Sagar, that the ministry had eliminated her position, effective immediately, according to Jonathan. Daystar reassigned Suzy’s father, Jai Sagar, to be a purchasing assistant shortly before Christmas, reducing his salary by $20,000. He was fired from his new role in mid-April.

Daystar notified Suzy on Jan. 30, 2024, that her previous full-time salary would be reduced to a $1,000-a-month retainer.

On April 4, Torres told Jonathan he had been removed from the board and demoted to a manager job, reducing his salary from $250,000 to $150,000. Daystar also put Jonathan on a performance improvement plan and took away his company car and other perks.

For much of the summer, the couple fled Texas with their children, feeling like they weren’t safe in their own home. In late August, Jonathan and Suzy returned home and decided to interview with TRR, providing hours of audio and reams of documentation concerning Daystar.

However, it wasn’t until Friday, Nov. 15, that TRR reached out to Joni for comment about the allegations against her.

The next day, Shannon Kelly showed up at Jonathan and Suzy’s house, carrying a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest. It was the same Daystar security chief that Jonathan believes planted a tracker in his car.

This time, though, Kelly was there to deliver a letter, telling Jonathan he was fired and no longer would have access to his email or Daystar’s property and facilities.

Though Nov. 15 was the deadline for Jonathan to respond to the performance improvement plan Daystar had given him, Jonathan said Daystar had never fired someone on a Saturday. If the decision to terminate was made on a Friday, the ministry would wait until at least Monday to deliver the news, he said.

Like the other tactics Daystar allegedly used against the couple, Jonathan said he believes the intent was to scare and intimidate. But he said he’s not backing down, and neither is Suzy.

“My hope and my trust (is) that justice is from the Lord—Psalm 37,” Suzy said on a recent interview. “And I know He will bring that to completion.”

Audio of Daystar Board Meeting Nov. 16, 2023, Part 1:

Julie Roys es una reportera de investigación veterana y fundadora de The Roys Report. Anteriormente, también presentó un programa de entrevistas nacional en Moody Radio Network, llamado Up for Debate, y ha trabajado como reportera de televisión para una filial de CBS. Sus artículos han aparecido en numerosas publicaciones periódicas.