If you're a regular viewer of 100 Huntley Street, you've probably been wondering why Ron Mainse and his brother, Reynold Mainse, have not been on the air for the past few weeks. Turns out, like so many other televangelist celebritites, they let their greed get them into some hot water as either victims or perpetrators of an affinity fraud/ponzi scheme. The jury's still out... Think they will they ever learn?
It appears that the brothers took the bait from a former volunteer of Crossroads Christian Communications Inc., Gordon Driver, and invested a small fortune with his Nevada based company, Axcess Automation, with the all-too-common promise of high returns. As is the case, those high returns stopped coming in and eventually the Ontario Securities Commission as well as the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission put a freeze on the assets of Driver and his companies.
Apparently, Gordon Driver scammed at least 100 people in the U.S. and Canada using his affiliations with Christian communities to a tune of some $14+ million dollars. The case is in court right now, but according to Driver, the Mainse brothers acted as "finders" for the scheme. Finders are recruiters who get other people to invest their money, which is essential to keeping the scam going - new investor's money is used to pay interest to earlier investors.
So once again the question begs to be asked: Were Ron and Reynold Mainse simply victims in this ponzi scheme, driven by their own greed to make a fast buck, or were they accomplices who used their ministry affiliations to draw more victims in?
Whatever the case, this fiasco has left another big ugly black mark on Christianity to go down in the history books. It goes to show that Christian television's poster children aren't any less susceptable to greed and the lust of the flesh than any other human being is on earth. It shows they have no more wisom, no more discernment than the "unsaved". These guys are hailed amongst Canada's finest and most reputable persons in Christian broadcasting and look what happened. Where is the evidence of the power of Christ they preach about?
http://www.thespec.com/article/569481
http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2009/06/06/whats-behind-the-100-huntley-street-shakeup/
http://www.benedictionblogson.com/2009/06/08/whats-behind-the-100-huntley-street-shake-up-part-2/
http://www.themiraclechannel.ca/article.php?story=20090612122056375