Advice needed, for a crazy situation

[buttercup]

I want to share a terrible and weird situation I've been in, hopefully to get some advice…especially if anyone here is a lawyer or is familiar with legal stuff.

So I have been part of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization for the last five years, that a couple friends of mine founded. It’s an online church. I'm on the board, as a trustee. About a year or two ago we started having problems with the president / pastor. One of the problems was that he kept requesting things that would have violated the 501(c)(3) laws, and he kept wanting to do things that we couldn't do legally. Our treasurer and secretary kept trying to tell him that we couldn't do those things legally, but nothing they said got through to him. That created a big rift between him and a couple of the other board members.

Another problem was that even though he’s an excellent teacher and speaker, he didn’t have the time, desire, or special people skills to deal with issues with people in the congregation. And there were a number of incidents of people (one of them was a volunteer) being hurt by him, because of how he handled the situation. Someone on the board suggested that we find a COO, or an assistant pastor, to deal with that day-to-day stuff or conflicts that he didn’t have time to deal with. That would have freed up time for him to do more of the things he likes to do and that he’s good at…but he was not receptive to bringing in a COO, he didn’t want to give up any control.

Another big problem was that he had a different vision for our organization than some of the others on the board did. Without getting into detail, we came up with a fantastic compromise that would have been really good for him, it was a win-win proposal. But he was not willing to compromise on certain things, so the negotiation fell through.

There’s also a copyright issue, he claims to have the copyright to the live talks, but the attorney we talked to said that if he was an employee (which he was) then the intellectual property belongs to the church. We were willing to do dual copyright, or give him the copyright under certain circumstances, but again he was not willing to compromise.

Meanwhile, during all of this, there was a growing feud between him and the co-founder /secretary. And also with the treasurer. And the biggest problem of all was that he had unforgiveness in his heart, over a long period of time, and an unwillingness to reconcile with her. Unforgiveness is a sin, so for a pastor to harbor unforgiveness and a refusal to reconcile is very bad from a spiritual standpoint. And we believe that is what led to what ended up happening, which I’ll explain.

What should have remained an internal conflict within the board reached the wider church community, because during one of our video meetings with some of the volunteers, he publicly made horrible accusations against the co-founder, bringing outsiders into the whole conflict. And unfortunately some of them believed him because they didn’t know the history of the whole situation that goes back a few years.

After trying MANY times to resolve these issues and reconcile with him, nothing we tried worked, so long story shorter, it was decided by the majority of the board to vote him out as president. We did everything according to our bylaws, and the 501(c)(3) rules, and although it wasn’t what we wanted to do, it was what we felt we had to do, after almost 2 years of trying to reconcile with him, with no resolution.

But a couple hours before he was officially voted out as president, he hijacked several of our important social media accounts (Google / Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and others), changed the passwords, removed all recovery info except his own, and completely locked us out of those platforms.

And then, to our shock and dismay, he later did a live talk which was simulcast on YouTube and Facebook, telling everyone that members of our board are being “guided by Satan” and that a “conspiracy was formed to illegally take over the church and dissolve it” - totally throwing us under the bus, in order to get everyone on his side.

So basically, he went completely rogue, and he has been carrying on as if he was never voted off the board, completely ignoring the reality. He is continuing to do regular live talks and continuing to use the social media platforms and the organization’s name illegally. He has 2 former board members on his side, and unfortunately he has a good chunk of the congregation still following him....because they don’t know the full story.

Our co-founder / secretary hired an attorney, but that has been extremely expensive, and it hasn’t gone so well, because the former president talked to the attorney and contradicted what we said. So the attorney said they would have to do an investigation to see who is the legitimate board, and all that. We don’t have an endless supply of money to continue using that attorney. We just want a cease-and-desist letter sent to him, to try to get him to stop what he’s doing… and of course he’s free to continue doing his thing through his own organization. We just want the split to be done in a legal and godly way, and right now it’s neither.

We want to find a pro bono attorney to help us going forward, but it has been extremely difficult to find one for our particular situation.

It feels like it will take a miracle to find either a pro bono or low-cost attorney to help us get back our organization and our social platforms. (Thankfully he didn’t hijack the website, so we still have that.) And I didn’t mention this before, but since everything he is doing is unauthorized, but he’s still using our organization’s name, that could potentially open the rest of us up to legal trouble.

I didn’t intend for this post to be so long!

But we really could use any advice we can get, because this has been a nightmare situation…and we just want to resolve it. Thanks for reading this!

 

[frigidweirdo]

I want to share a terrible and weird situation I've been in, hopefully to get some advice…especially if anyone here is a lawyer or is familiar with legal stuff.

So I have been part of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization for the last five years, that a couple friends of mine founded. It’s an online church. I'm on the board, as a trustee. About a year or two ago we started having problems with the president / pastor. One of the problems was that he kept requesting things that would have violated the 501(c)(3) laws, and he kept wanting to do things that we couldn't do legally. Our treasurer and secretary kept trying to tell him that we couldn't do those things legally, but nothing they said got through to him. That created a big rift between him and a couple of the other board members.

Another problem was that even though he’s an excellent teacher and speaker, he didn’t have the time, desire, or special people skills to deal with issues with people in the congregation. And there were a number of incidents of people (one of them was a volunteer) being hurt by him, because of how he handled the situation. Someone on the board suggested that we find a COO, or an assistant pastor, to deal with that day-to-day stuff or conflicts that he didn’t have time to deal with. That would have freed up time for him to do more of the things he likes to do and that he’s good at…but he was not receptive to bringing in a COO, he didn’t want to give up any control.

Another big problem was that he had a different vision for our organization than some of the others on the board did. Without getting into detail, we came up with a fantastic compromise that would have been really good for him, it was a win-win proposal. But he was not willing to compromise on certain things, so the negotiation fell through.

There’s also a copyright issue, he claims to have the copyright to the live talks, but the attorney we talked to said that if he was an employee (which he was) then the intellectual property belongs to the church. We were willing to do dual copyright, or give him the copyright under certain circumstances, but again he was not willing to compromise.

Meanwhile, during all of this, there was a growing feud between him and the co-founder /secretary. And also with the treasurer. And the biggest problem of all was that he had unforgiveness in his heart, over a long period of time, and an unwillingness to reconcile with her. Unforgiveness is a sin, so for a pastor to harbor unforgiveness and a refusal to reconcile is very bad from a spiritual standpoint. And we believe that is what led to what ended up happening, which I’ll explain.

What should have remained an internal conflict within the board reached the wider church community, because during one of our video meetings with some of the volunteers, he publicly made horrible accusations against the co-founder, bringing outsiders into the whole conflict. And unfortunately some of them believed him because they didn’t know the history of the whole situation that goes back a few years.

After trying MANY times to resolve these issues and reconcile with him, nothing we tried worked, so long story shorter, it was decided by the majority of the board to vote him out as president. We did everything according to our bylaws, and the 501(c)(3) rules, and although it wasn’t what we wanted to do, it was what we felt we had to do, after almost 2 years of trying to reconcile with him, with no resolution.

But a couple hours before he was officially voted out as president, he hijacked several of our important social media accounts (Google / Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and others), changed the passwords, removed all recovery info except his own, and completely locked us out of those platforms.

And then, to our shock and dismay, he later did a live talk which was simulcast on YouTube and Facebook, telling everyone that members of our board are being “guided by Satan” and that a “conspiracy was formed to illegally take over the church and dissolve it” - totally throwing us under the bus, in order to get everyone on his side.

So basically, he went completely rogue, and he has been carrying on as if he was never voted off the board, completely ignoring the reality. He is continuing to do regular live talks and continuing to use the social media platforms and the organization’s name illegally. He has 2 former board members on his side, and unfortunately he has a good chunk of the congregation still following him....because they don’t know the full story.

Our co-founder / secretary hired an attorney, but that has been extremely expensive, and it hasn’t gone so well, because the former president talked to the attorney and contradicted what we said. So the attorney said they would have to do an investigation to see who is the legitimate board, and all that. We don’t have an endless supply of money to continue using that attorney. We just want a cease-and-desist letter sent to him, to try to get him to stop what he’s doing… and of course he’s free to continue doing his thing through his own organization. We just want the split to be done in a legal and godly way, and right now it’s neither.

We want to find a pro bono attorney to help us going forward, but it has been extremely difficult to find one for our particular situation.

It feels like it will take a miracle to find either a pro bono or low-cost attorney to help us get back our organization and our social platforms. (Thankfully he didn’t hijack the website, so we still have that.) And I didn’t mention this before, but since everything he is doing is unauthorized, but he’s still using our organization’s name, that could potentially open the rest of us up to legal trouble.

I didn’t intend for this post to be so long!

But we really could use any advice we can get, because this has been a nightmare situation…and we just want to resolve it. Thanks for reading this!

Get rid of him, or threaten him. Tell him if he wants to do these things, he can start his own church.

 

[buttercup]

Get rid of him, or threaten him. Tell him if he wants to do these things, he can start his own church.

What do you mean by get rid of him? We did vote him out, it was done by a majority vote, legally and according to our bylaws. But he has basically ignored that and is painting the whole thing in a completely false way. And the worst part is, he is misleading the public, and we never know what he's going to say next in his live talks, since we no longer have control of our YouTube and Facebook accounts. The whole thing is so flippin crazy.

 

[frigidweirdo]

What do you mean by get rid of him? We did vote him out, it was done by a majority vote, legally and according to our bylaws. But he has basically ignored that and is painting the whole thing in a completely false way. And the worst part is, he is misleading the public, and we never know what he's going to say next in his live talks, since we no longer have control of our YouTube and Facebook accounts. The whole thing is so flippin crazy.

So how is he still keeping going?

Maybe you can talk to Facebook and Youtube and say these accounts should be shut down and open new ones. Tell all the people who are a part of the church where the new channels are, etc etc.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

What do you mean by get rid of him? We did vote him out, it was done by a majority vote, legally and according to our bylaws. But he has basically ignored that and is painting the whole thing in a completely false way. And the worst part is, he is misleading the public, and we never know what he's going to say next in his live talks, since we no longer have control of our YouTube and Facebook accounts. The whole thing is so flippin crazy.

I want to share a terrible and weird situation I've been in, hopefully to get some advice…especially if anyone here is a lawyer or is familiar with legal stuff.

So I have been part of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization for the last five years, that a couple friends of mine founded. It’s an online church. I'm on the board, as a trustee. About a year or two ago we started having problems with the president / pastor. One of the problems was that he kept requesting things that would have violated the 501(c)(3) laws, and he kept wanting to do things that we couldn't do legally. Our treasurer and secretary kept trying to tell him that we couldn't do those things legally, but nothing they said got through to him. That created a big rift between him and a couple of the other board members.

Another problem was that even though he’s an excellent teacher and speaker, he didn’t have the time, desire, or special people skills to deal with issues with people in the congregation. And there were a number of incidents of people (one of them was a volunteer) being hurt by him, because of how he handled the situation. Someone on the board suggested that we find a COO, or an assistant pastor, to deal with that day-to-day stuff or conflicts that he didn’t have time to deal with. That would have freed up time for him to do more of the things he likes to do and that he’s good at…but he was not receptive to bringing in a COO, he didn’t want to give up any control.

Another big problem was that he had a different vision for our organization than some of the others on the board did. Without getting into detail, we came up with a fantastic compromise that would have been really good for him, it was a win-win proposal. But he was not willing to compromise on certain things, so the negotiation fell through.

There’s also a copyright issue, he claims to have the copyright to the live talks, but the attorney we talked to said that if he was an employee (which he was) then the intellectual property belongs to the church. We were willing to do dual copyright, or give him the copyright under certain circumstances, but again he was not willing to compromise.

Meanwhile, during all of this, there was a growing feud between him and the co-founder /secretary. And also with the treasurer. And the biggest problem of all was that he had unforgiveness in his heart, over a long period of time, and an unwillingness to reconcile with her. Unforgiveness is a sin, so for a pastor to harbor unforgiveness and a refusal to reconcile is very bad from a spiritual standpoint. And we believe that is what led to what ended up happening, which I’ll explain.

What should have remained an internal conflict within the board reached the wider church community, because during one of our video meetings with some of the volunteers, he publicly made horrible accusations against the co-founder, bringing outsiders into the whole conflict. And unfortunately some of them believed him because they didn’t know the history of the whole situation that goes back a few years.

After trying MANY times to resolve these issues and reconcile with him, nothing we tried worked, so long story shorter, it was decided by the majority of the board to vote him out as president. We did everything according to our bylaws, and the 501(c)(3) rules, and although it wasn’t what we wanted to do, it was what we felt we had to do, after almost 2 years of trying to reconcile with him, with no resolution.

But a couple hours before he was officially voted out as president, he hijacked several of our important social media accounts (Google / Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and others), changed the passwords, removed all recovery info except his own, and completely locked us out of those platforms.

And then, to our shock and dismay, he later did a live talk which was simulcast on YouTube and Facebook, telling everyone that members of our board are being “guided by Satan” and that a “conspiracy was formed to illegally take over the church and dissolve it” - totally throwing us under the bus, in order to get everyone on his side.

So basically, he went completely rogue, and he has been carrying on as if he was never voted off the board, completely ignoring the reality. He is continuing to do regular live talks and continuing to use the social media platforms and the organization’s name illegally. He has 2 former board members on his side, and unfortunately he has a good chunk of the congregation still following him....because they don’t know the full story.

Our co-founder / secretary hired an attorney, but that has been extremely expensive, and it hasn’t gone so well, because the former president talked to the attorney and contradicted what we said. So the attorney said they would have to do an investigation to see who is the legitimate board, and all that. We don’t have an endless supply of money to continue using that attorney. We just want a cease-and-desist letter sent to him, to try to get him to stop what he’s doing… and of course he’s free to continue doing his thing through his own organization. We just want the split to be done in a legal and godly way, and right now it’s neither.

We want to find a pro bono attorney to help us going forward, but it has been extremely difficult to find one for our particular situation.

It feels like it will take a miracle to find either a pro bono or low-cost attorney to help us get back our organization and our social platforms. (Thankfully he didn’t hijack the website, so we still have that.) And I didn’t mention this before, but since everything he is doing is unauthorized, but he’s still using our organization’s name, that could potentially open the rest of us up to legal trouble.

I didn’t intend for this post to be so long!

But we really could use any advice we can get, because this has been a nightmare situation…and we just want to resolve it. Thanks for reading this!

A couple of things:
1. Which state are you in?
2. From what you described, he violated a couple of laws when they took control of and locked everyone out of the computer systems and accounts that belong to the church if he is indeed only an employee there and not the legitimate owner of those accounts & devices.
3. Are you trying regain access to your accounts or just trying to locate a pro bono attorney?

You can send me a private message if you don't want to reveal your location here.

 

[buttercup]

So how is he still keeping going?

Maybe you can talk to Facebook and Youtube and say these accounts should be shut down and open new ones. Tell all the people who are a part of the church where the new channels are, etc etc.

We have tried to report him to YouTube and Facebook, but so far nothing has happened with that. It's nearly impossible to reach an actual human being with those big platforms, because they don't have a customer service number or something like that.

But we want to do a cease and desist letter first, to TRY to get him to do the right thing on his own... as opposed to just taking back our social media accounts, which he would most likely use to paint US as the villains, even more, by telling everyone that we hijacked the social accounts, when it was actually the other way around.

If he doesn't understand the seriousness of a cease and desist letter sent by an attorney, then we're hoping that one of the people around him might still have enough sense to see that what they're doing is not only illegal but totally wrong. I mean, he's ignoring those of us on the board who voted him out, even though a couple of us have been in this organization since the start, and have worked really hard for the last 4- 5 years. He's acting like we don't even exist... which is very bizarre. Maybe he's just waiting for us to take action, and so far we haven't done anything major yet.

 

[Samofvt]

I want to share a terrible and weird situation I've been in, hopefully to get some advice…especially if anyone here is a lawyer or is familiar with legal stuff.

So I have been part of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization for the last five years, that a couple friends of mine founded. It’s an online church. I'm on the board, as a trustee. About a year or two ago we started having problems with the president / pastor. One of the problems was that he kept requesting things that would have violated the 501(c)(3) laws, and he kept wanting to do things that we couldn't do legally. Our treasurer and secretary kept trying to tell him that we couldn't do those things legally, but nothing they said got through to him. That created a big rift between him and a couple of the other board members.

Another problem was that even though he’s an excellent teacher and speaker, he didn’t have the time, desire, or special people skills to deal with issues with people in the congregation. And there were a number of incidents of people (one of them was a volunteer) being hurt by him, because of how he handled the situation. Someone on the board suggested that we find a COO, or an assistant pastor, to deal with that day-to-day stuff or conflicts that he didn’t have time to deal with. That would have freed up time for him to do more of the things he likes to do and that he’s good at…but he was not receptive to bringing in a COO, he didn’t want to give up any control.

Another big problem was that he had a different vision for our organization than some of the others on the board did. Without getting into detail, we came up with a fantastic compromise that would have been really good for him, it was a win-win proposal. But he was not willing to compromise on certain things, so the negotiation fell through.

There’s also a copyright issue, he claims to have the copyright to the live talks, but the attorney we talked to said that if he was an employee (which he was) then the intellectual property belongs to the church. We were willing to do dual copyright, or give him the copyright under certain circumstances, but again he was not willing to compromise.

Meanwhile, during all of this, there was a growing feud between him and the co-founder /secretary. And also with the treasurer. And the biggest problem of all was that he had unforgiveness in his heart, over a long period of time, and an unwillingness to reconcile with her. Unforgiveness is a sin, so for a pastor to harbor unforgiveness and a refusal to reconcile is very bad from a spiritual standpoint. And we believe that is what led to what ended up happening, which I’ll explain.

What should have remained an internal conflict within the board reached the wider church community, because during one of our video meetings with some of the volunteers, he publicly made horrible accusations against the co-founder, bringing outsiders into the whole conflict. And unfortunately some of them believed him because they didn’t know the history of the whole situation that goes back a few years.

After trying MANY times to resolve these issues and reconcile with him, nothing we tried worked, so long story shorter, it was decided by the majority of the board to vote him out as president. We did everything according to our bylaws, and the 501(c)(3) rules, and although it wasn’t what we wanted to do, it was what we felt we had to do, after almost 2 years of trying to reconcile with him, with no resolution.

But a couple hours before he was officially voted out as president, he hijacked several of our important social media accounts (Google / Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and others), changed the passwords, removed all recovery info except his own, and completely locked us out of those platforms.

And then, to our shock and dismay, he later did a live talk which was simulcast on YouTube and Facebook, telling everyone that members of our board are being “guided by Satan” and that a “conspiracy was formed to illegally take over the church and dissolve it” - totally throwing us under the bus, in order to get everyone on his side.

So basically, he went completely rogue, and he has been carrying on as if he was never voted off the board, completely ignoring the reality. He is continuing to do regular live talks and continuing to use the social media platforms and the organization’s name illegally. He has 2 former board members on his side, and unfortunately he has a good chunk of the congregation still following him....because they don’t know the full story.

Our co-founder / secretary hired an attorney, but that has been extremely expensive, and it hasn’t gone so well, because the former president talked to the attorney and contradicted what we said. So the attorney said they would have to do an investigation to see who is the legitimate board, and all that. We don’t have an endless supply of money to continue using that attorney. We just want a cease-and-desist letter sent to him, to try to get him to stop what he’s doing… and of course he’s free to continue doing his thing through his own organization. We just want the split to be done in a legal and godly way, and right now it’s neither.

We want to find a pro bono attorney to help us going forward, but it has been extremely difficult to find one for our particular situation.

It feels like it will take a miracle to find either a pro bono or low-cost attorney to help us get back our organization and our social platforms. (Thankfully he didn’t hijack the website, so we still have that.) And I didn’t mention this before, but since everything he is doing is unauthorized, but he’s still using our organization’s name, that could potentially open the rest of us up to legal trouble.

I didn’t intend for this post to be so long!

But we really could use any advice we can get, because this has been a nightmare situation…and we just want to resolve it. Thanks for reading this!

It sounds like the high $ lawyer is full of **it. The former president would require the signature of the secretary and/or the Treasurer of the organization to do what they are doing.

Have the secretary of the board, and the newly appointed chair (or president), create a document. Have them and the lawful board members sign that same document in attestation. Send it to the social media platforms and request intervention to recover those assets. Include the minutes of the board that shows all actions leading to the current situation. Have those minutes signed and notarized.

In the meantime, do what you can to reach out to the members of the congregation and explain what has happened. Do not have any interactions with the wayward person. If they have seized bank accounts or money without the boards consent, quietly file a civil lawsuit to recover those accounts. The court clerk will explain what you need to do (possibly have a notice sent via the Sherif's department to inform them of the suit). Talk only to the judge appointed to the case, not to that person.

You don't need a lawyer. Or threats. Truth is all you need.

 

[buttercup]

A couple of things:
1. Which state are you in?
2. From what you described, he violated a couple of laws when they took control of and locked everyone out of the computer systems and accounts that belong to the church if he is indeed only an employee there and not the legitimate owner of those accounts & devices.
3. Are you trying regain access to your accounts or just trying to locate a pro bono attorney?

You can send me a private message if you don't want to reveal your location here.

Well, since we're a totally online organization, we're not all in the same state. I'm in California, and our mailing address is in CA, but the other board members are in different states around the US.

Thanks for your input. Like I mentioned to someone else, we have tried to take back our accounts but it's not easy. There are companies that specialize in that, but it's a good chunk of money so we haven't done that yet....We want to do a cease and desist first, to see if that will get him to do the right thing.

We've been trying to find a pro bono attorney (since the one we had before was getting too expensive) but I don't even know where to look. I found some places that were suggested to me, but most of the pro bono attorneys out there seem to focus on things like low income people who have housing issues, or things like that. Our situation, since it's an online thing, seems to be kind of unique.

 

[frigidweirdo]

We have tried to report him to YouTube and Facebook, but so far nothing has happened with that. It's nearly impossible to reach an actual human being with those big platforms, because they don't have a customer service number or something like that.

But we want to do a cease and desist letter first, to TRY to get him to do the right thing on his own... as opposed to just taking back our social media accounts, which he would most likely use to paint US as the villains, even more, by telling everyone that we hijacked the social accounts, when it was actually the other way around.

If he doesn't understand the seriousness of a cease and desist letter sent by an attorney, then we're hoping that one of the people around him might still have enough sense to see that what they're doing is not only illegal but totally wrong. I mean, he's ignoring those of us on the board who voted him out, even though a couple of us have been in this organization since the start, and have worked really hard for the last 4- 5 years. He's acting like we don't even exist... which is very bizarre. Maybe he's just waiting for us to take action, and so far we haven't done anything major yet.

Well, you seem to know how you want to handle this. There isn't really much you can do other than what you're doing, or escalate things.

 

[buttercup]

It sounds like the high $ lawyer is full of **it. The former president would require the signature of the secretary and/or the Treasurer of the organization to do what they are doing.

Have the secretary of the board, and the newly appointed chair (or president), create a document. Have them and the lawful board members sign that same document in attestation. Send it to the social media platforms and request intervention to recover those assets. Include the minutes of the board that shows all actions leading to the current situation. Have those minutes signed and notarized.

In the meantime, do what you can to reach out to the members of the congregation and explain what has happened. Do not have any interactions with the wayward person. If they have seized bank accounts or money without the boards consent, quietly file a civil lawsuit to recover those accounts. The court clerk will explain what you need to do (possibly have a notice sent via the Sherif's department to inform them of the suit). Talk only to the judge appointed to the case, not to that person.

You don't need a lawyer. Or threats. Truth is all you need.

Thank you! I appreciate the advice. We do have all the proof / documentation we need to prove ownership, we have the minutes and everything documented. But getting through to those big platforms is harder than pulling teeth. But I know there must be a way.

And yes, we are planning to put a letter on our website (thankfully we still have the website) to set the record straight for all the congregation. But he is a VERY convincing speaker, so he does have a lot of people who are very devoted to him. But there are also people who have contacted us asking what is going on, and the mature people who understand things like how churches work and legal matters are on our side.

 

[Samofvt]

Thank you! I appreciate the advice. We do have all the proof / documentation we need to prove ownership, we have the minutes and everything documented. But getting through to those big platforms is harder than pulling teeth. But I know there must be a way.

And yes, we are planning to put a letter on our website (thankfully we still have the website) to set the record straight for all the congregation. But he is a VERY convincing speaker, so he does have a lot of people who are very devoted to him. But there are also people who have contacted us asking what is going on, and the mature people who understand things like how churches work and legal matters are on our side.

yes. those "platforms" are not so much our friends. It may take time. Use legal mailing addresses whenever possible, and save all copies of what you send.

It is possible to use your website to broadcast mp4 recorded videos. Not that hard to do. Then you don't have to rely on those others. I have disavowed those "platforms"...all seem to be evil. Usmessageboard still seems to allow free speech, within reason Thankfully.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Well, since we're a totally online organization, we're not all in the same state. I'm in California, and our mailing address is in CA, but the other board members are in different states around the US.

Thanks for your input. Like I mentioned to someone else, we have tried to take back our accounts but it's not easy. There are companies that specialize in that, but it's a good chunk of money so we haven't done that yet....We want to do a cease and desist first, to see if that will get him to do the right thing.

We've been trying to find a pro bono attorney (since the one we had before was getting too expensive) but I don't even know where to look. I found some places that were suggested to me, but most of the pro bono attorneys out there seem to focus on things like low income people who have housing issues, or things like that. Our situation, since it's an online thing, seems to be kind of unique.

Which state is he in? The reason I ask is because when it comes to electronic activities over the internet, the laws of both states (sender/receiver and/or "plaintiff" (you all/church) / defendant) can apply, and even sometimes federal law.

Let me check on something & get back to you sometime tomorrow please.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The ungodly pay in many different ways for their sins.

 

[buttercup]

Which state is he in? The reason I ask is because when it comes to electronic activities over the internet, the laws of both states (sender/receiver and/or "plaintiff" (you all/church) / defendant) can apply, and even sometimes federal law.

Let me check on something & get back to you sometime tomorrow please.

He is also in California, but in a different part. Thank you so much for looking into it! I really appreciate it!

 

[Natural Citizen]

Reach out to Lauren Weinstein regarding the technical web site theft and how to navigate those companies in the process of Legal retrieval.

He's based out of Los Angeles.

He's always been responsive to such matters.

https://www.vortex.com/lauren

 

[buttercup]

Reach out to Lauren Weinstein regarding the technical web site theft and how to navigate those companies in the process of Legal retrieval.

He's based out of Los Angeles.

He's always been responsive to such matters.

https://www.vortex.com/lauren

Thank you!!! That is very helpful, we'll definitely try getting in touch with him. I appreciate the suggestion and the link!

 

[Mack The Finger]

Pretend youse are all gay, start a rummor that friday night is slug fest !

Be like Hanoi and be ready to engage in a long stuggle to drive him away.

 

[Darkwind]

I hope you've documented everything.

 

[buttercup]

I hope you've documented everything.

Thanks, yes, we have documented everything. The problem is, the former president is very strategic about everything, and we don't know what he has up his sleeve, if he tries to fight back legally. So we're hoping it doesn't get to that point, and that a cease and desist letter that will be enough to get him to stop.

 

[Darkwind]

Thanks, yes, we have documented everything. The problem is, the former president is very strategic about everything, and we don't know what he has up his sleeve, if he tries to fight back legally. So we're hoping it doesn't get to that point, and that a cease and desist letter that will be enough to get him to stop.

It won't matter. If you have the truth on your side, then the courts will rule in your favor.

Good luck.