A Maryland pastor is facing a potential 20 years in prison for fraudulently obtaining $1.5 million in Payback Protection Program (PPP) loans, which he then used to buy 39 cars, authorities say.
Pastor Rudolph Brooks Jr., the 45-year-old founder and senior pastor of Washington, D.C.’s Kingdom Tabernacle of Restoration Ministries, was arrested April 2. According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, authorities also seized $2.2 million from Brooks and a 2018 Tesla Model 3.
PPP loans are supposed to be spent on paychecks, mortgage payments, rent, and utilities so businesses in need could survive the pandemic.
Brooks, however, spent these loans on personal expenses, including 39 cars, the DOJ said.
Brooks owned his own business, Cars Direct, in 2010. After forfeiting his business in 2012, he renewed it on May 28, 2020. But according to the DOJ, Brooks’ business never filed taxes or paid wages, and its expenses never came close to $1.5 million.
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Even so, the government loaned Brooks $1.5 million. Brooks then moved the money into 11 bank accounts, authorities say. Some went to personal expenditures, mortgage payments, and credit card bills.
Some money was also reportedly funneled from Cars Direct to another business owned by Brooks, Madaro LLC, which bought a property in Baltimore.
The remaining funds went to cars, the DOJ said. These included a 2017 Mercedes Benz S Class, two 2017 Infinity Q50s, a 2015 Cadillac Escalade, a 2005 Bentley Continental, a 2018 Tesla Model 3, a 2014 GMC Yukon XL, and several older model luxury vehicles.
An older version of the Kingdom Tabernacle of Restoration website highly praises the pastor’s character. A more recent version of Restoration’s website and Facebook page are no longer available.
“(Brooks’s) intense love for the Lord, relentless spirit and ability to tap into the very heart of God make him a memorable speaker,” the former church website said. “With his love for God and lively preaching style, which can hold even the skeptics attention, Pastor Brooks speaks and shares the heart of God with compassion and conviction.”
Brooks previously worked in many roles at the nearby Maryland Kingdom Tabernacle of Refuge Ministries, his site said. He was the first ordained elder, assistant pastor, chair of finance, head of men’s ministry, and a teacher.
It’s unclear whether Brooks still has connections to the Tabernacle of Refuge. However, the two church websites are similar, and both ask people to “sow a seed” by giving money to the church.
The Roys Report reached out to both Tabernacle of Restoration and Tabernacle of Refuge but received no response.
Jackson Elliott is a Christian journalist trained at Northwestern University. He has worked at The Daily Signal, The Inlander, and The Christian Post, covering topics ranging from D.C. politics to prison ministry. His interests include the Bible, philosophy, theology, Russian literature, and Irish music.
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15 thoughts on “Pastor Arrested for Buying 39 Cars With PPP Loans”
Ahhh nothing says praissssssse the lordddddda like the evangelical industrial complex. I’m sick of knowing that my fellow Christians are soooo naive to trust anybody on pulpit that dresses nicer than the most humble of the churches flock. I can listen to a preacher and if he can’t stand still I know he is a false teacher and change the Channel. Jesus never had impulse control issues when he taught the people gods truth. If preacher can’t sit still he’s an entertainer not a teacher. These low life’s find every excuse to not pay taxes then steal from the government. Hello Joel olsteen and all you grifters. Stop giving them money. Give to the actual poor.
Sounds like OLD SCHOOL CHURCH CORRUPTION!
Another crook who will enjoy “ministering” behind bars. May he repent and come to a saving knowledge of the Lord and serve out his remaining days in true worship.
They just jealous, can’t a man of gawd have a little transpo?! lol
Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar say the same about their private jets.
Copeland remains the World’s Richest Televangelists — that’s a lot of widows sending in a lot of Social Security checks!
Don’t forget Benny “Darth” Hinn and his private jet:
That video is hilarious!
I wonder if those who fell for this type of nonsense ever look back in embarrassment, or, do they still believe this is the Holy Spirit?
I think the apostle Paul could have learned a few pointers on showmanship from BH
Writer Rob Dreher, author of the Benedict Option, states that the levels of curruption in the evangelical world is parallel to the catholic corruption of the XIV century. He is right. We are due for another freormation.
An excellent and thought provoking book. I wonder if the light of Christianity is leaving the West and will be welcomed and found in Russia. Evangelicals have given up on holiness and are mixing Christ with all sorts of idols and worldly ways. Our independent movement spawns all sorts of abominations and aberrations.
Appreciate Rob Dreher, but if he said this, I’d be surprised. In his book, LIVE NOT BY LIES, he readily confesses not knowing much about Evangelicals. Factually, no branch of Protestantism can hold a candle to the Catholic corruption down through the centuries. It grew out of a separate legal system for priests, Canon Law, exempting them from direct accountability to national courts, and the extensive secular power wielded by the Pope for so many centuries as a king who fielded armies.
For centuries, kings depended on Papal accrediting to secure the legitimacy of their thrones. We’re talking real corruption here, and no foolin’ secular power. The Catholic Church in Europe through indulgences became major landowners throughout Europe. Princes in Germany supported Luther in part over the threat of Catholic Church ownership of so much land. France violently took back land and closed monasteries and re-claimed land in its revolution. Cromwell did the same in England. Church wealth was so despised, France developed into a secular state. The Catholic Church gained so much land because people gave their property to the Church to ensure perpetual masses would be said for them to get them out of Purgatory. What a business model! To this day, the Papal State of the Vatican receives and sends nationally recognized ambassadors around the world. The Catholic Church had treaties all around the world with countries establishing it as the state religion. Only recently have these treaty arrangements ended. Evangelicals and Protestantism have had no similar international institutional influence in the courts of power.
The Catholic clergy abuse scandal is like no other church sex scandal in scale. Cardinals and Bishops moved sex offending priests from diocese to diocese, moved them from country to country, like a criminal enterprise. Whole dioceses went bankrupt over this scandal. Whole Catholic countries greatly departed Catholicism as the scandal and its extent unfolded. Attendance, people entering the priesthood, and giving declined everywhere. Ireland is a prime example.
Would Evangelicals be capable of scandals on this scale? Absolutely. It’s just that Protestantism has tended to be national in its organization and divided. Political power is corrupting. Religious power embedded officially in the secular state is more corrupting. The Church as the monarchical secular power is a disaster. Evangelicals in the U.S. and around the world have yet to have the kind of international levers of power and influence that Catholicism has had. Rod Dreher know this.
Add on an “anointed prayer cloth” for 29.95.
And after that, Selling Indulgences.
Heaven for cash up front.
While pointing fingers and piously intoning “I THANK THEE, LOOOOOOOOOOORD, THAT *I* AM NOTHING LIKE THOSE FILTHY ROMISH PAPIST PRIESTS OVER THERE…”
I got news for you. The Catholic Church and all these Protestant New Reformers traded places in attitudes over the past 500 years.
Our tax dollars at work. At least this guy got caught. One can only imagine how much more of the recent government handouts went towards illegitimate ends.
By the way, the Catholic Church still does believe in indulgences, e.g. as explained by a priest, who also quotes Pope Francis:
“As we’ll see, indulgences are still very much a part of our Catholic faith.”
“So, what exactly is an indulgence? In the words of the Manual of Indulgences, an indulgence is ‘a remission before God of temporal punishment for sins, whose guilt is forgiven, which a properly disposed
member of the Christian faith obtains under certain and clearly defined conditions through the intervention of the Church.'”
“An indulgence, quite simply, is either a partial or a plenary (complete) remission of these temporal consequences of sin, which the church grants from her treasury of graces. This is great news!”
“To gain a plenary indulgence during this Holy Year of Mercy, the following is necessary: Have an interior disposition of detachment from all sin, go to confession, receive holy Communion, pray for the Holy
Father’s intentions and make a pilgrimage to a basilica or another designated place, such as a cathedral.”
https://www.nwcatholic.org/spirituality/ask-father/catholic-church-belief-in-indulgences.html
“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
The Paycheck Protection Program should have never been extended to churches. Taking federal money has corrupted every institution that’s tried it. Through government subsidy, Christian Universities have become totally secularized, and drug, poverty, and overseas relief ministries de-Christianized. The bargain is to the state, able to take over Christian institutions after believers sacrificially built and supported them for generations then directing them for their own purposes.
The power to tax is not the only power that can cripple. Taking state and federal “free” money is more subtle and slow acting, but just as destructive. I don’t blame the state. It’s just doing what the political state does: buy support, reward current and potential future friends. The business of government is to extend its power. The business of citizens and a Constitution is to hold it at bay. I blame the churches who aren’t smart enough to say, “No thank you. For heaven’s sake, no.”
The Priests, scribes, and Pharisees preferred preserving the Temple and the Jewish institutions. Jesus was a threat to the business of religion. Stephen was killed by a mob that moved in one accord at the point in his sermon in which he accused his hearers of turning the Temple into an idol. These things were written for our benefit. We idolize our institutions at great peril.
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