‘It is bad:’ Former Celebration Church pastor sues current leadership, alleges fraud
The embattled former pastor of Celebration Church is now fighting back with a countersuit against some of the megachurch’s current leadership.
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The lawsuit, filed in court Jan. 19, said trustees conspired to “...create and publicly disseminate a false and defamatory narrative and statements... to try to destroy [the Weems’] reputations, humiliate them, and prevent Pastor Weems from continuing his ministry elsewhere.”
“I could say things about what those people said and did and they know that I know,” Stovall Weems told Action News Jax’s Robert Grant. “It’s so bad.”
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The suit names the church’s leadership including: Tim Timberlake, Wayland Wiseman, Lisa Stewart, Kevin Cormier, Marcus Rowe, Angela Cannon, Jacob William, and Lee Wedekind.
The update comes after Celebration Church conducted an independent investigation last year which claimed Weems owed the church more than $3 million (‘It’s repulsive:’ Celebration Church founding pastor responds to accusations of fraud, misconduct – Action News Jax). The report, conducted by Nelson Mullins, also said the church’s balance allegedly dropped from $9 million in Oct. 2020 to $2 million in April 2022 and Weems “never grasped where the money went.”
Weems said in the lawsuit that it was actually some of the trustees who acted fraudulently.
“Unaware of the clandestine plot against him, Pastor Weems discovered another instance of Cormier attempting to defraud the church and eventually learned about Cormier’s false claims to senior church members, other Trustees, and the Overseers about Pastor Weems,” the suit reads.
Read: Watchdog finds $5.4 billion in potentially fraudulent pandemic loans
“What I think is going to turn out to be the precedent-setting case of lawlessness in a church in America. We don’t want to be known or that,” Weems said.
The former pastor told Action News Jax that the plot started back in 2019 after Weems’ revelation to change the way Celebration Church operated and his move to hold leaders accountable.
“The church’s become not just a church — it’s a media company, and a construction company, and a school, and there’s all kinds of HR and compliance and stuff,” he said. “I said we have to get the enterprise out of the church so it can function in a more pure way as the Lord intended it.”
Weems said he has evidence of fraudulent behavior and even emails that prove there was a plan to oust him and his wife, Kerri, from the church. Action News Jax asked when he planned on releasing the information. Weems said, “Well we’re going to release it at the trial.”
The former pastor wants to have the case go before a trial where he says a jury can decide how much he’s owed in damages. He has since set up a website aimed at clearing the family name (Clearing Our Name).
“I will not allow my wife and kids to walk around this city under a cloud of shame when they did nothing. And I? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
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Action News Jax reached out to Celebration Church for a statement on the countersuit, we will update this story if we hear back.
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