• Home
  • News
  • Lawyer Says Televangelist’s No-Divorce Policy May Have Led to Killing

Trials & Litigation

Lawyer Says Televangelist’s No-Divorce Policy May Have Led to Killing

Posted Nov 4, 2009 9:19 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A lawyer says he needs to depose televangelist Joyce Meyer to determine whether her ministries could have prevented the slaying of a woman and her two sons.

Lawyer Enrico Mirabelli represents the family of the victims in a lawsuit against the woman’s husband, Christopher Coleman, the former security chief for Joyce Meyer Ministries, according to the Belleville News-Democrat and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mirabelli says Meyer’s no-divorce policy for staffers may have led Coleman to kill his wife, Sheri Coleman, and their children, United Press International reports. Christopher Coleman has been charged with first-degree murder but has not yet been tried. Mirabelli is seeking to add the ministry as a defendant in the wrongful death suit against Coleman.

The family also contends the slaying may have been avoided if the ministry had investigated anonymous e-mail threats made against the Coleman family. The threats said Coleman's family would be killed unless Meyer stopped preaching, according to the News Democrat. Police believe Christopher Coleman was the author of the e-mails, court documents say.

Police allege Christopher Coleman murdered his wife so he could marry another woman with whom he was having an affair.

Comments

1.

tim
Nov 4, 2009 9:58 AM CST

“Mirabelli says Meyer’s no-divorce policy for staffers may have led Coleman to kill his wife,”

What a bunch of BS?  I would be angry if I was a juror and someone came up with that as an excuse.  No work policy no matter how insane is an excuse for killing your spouse.

My boss doesn’t let us do all kinds of things.  Does that mean I can kill him over it?

Stop trying to put the blame on someone or somethign else.

Flag this comment

2.

associate
Nov 4, 2009 10:30 AM CST

And what’s their excuse for him strangling his sons?

Flag this comment

3.

No Kool-Aid
Nov 4, 2009 10:45 AM CST

Join them. I was fortunate enough to escape from one of these demi-cults. My ex-wife (a Masters Degree, high school homecoming queen) taught Meyer (among others) material. I promise, it is like a hostage with Stockholm syndrome. Of course he killed her, he couldn’t divorce her. My ex-wife once said it would be better to kill the family so they could be with Jesus now, rather than go through embarrassing divorce proceedings. I’m telling you, there are more of these people than you think.

Flag this comment

4.

AndytheLawyer
Nov 4, 2009 11:10 AM CST

Just another search for a deep pocket, since security guard Coleman is unlikely to be able to satisfy a fat wrongful death judgment.  But good luck surviving the televangelist’s motion to dismiss.  It would take a fiction writer of Nobel laureate-level talent to concoct a thread of causation in a complaint.

The wife’s family’s lawyer might have better odds suing George W. Bush.  The theory would be that if not for the economic collapse and skyrocketing unemployment rate, Coleman would have been less desperate to keep his job at a shop with unreasonable conditions.

Flag this comment

5.

df
Nov 4, 2009 1:40 PM CST

Lawyer for the victims seeks to depose her, it’s not a defence!

If there was a no-divorce policy, that could obviously be a financial (and/or religious) motive for the murders and relevant (depending upon specifics of the pleadings).

Flag this comment

6.

William Stanley Daniel
Nov 4, 2009 5:05 PM CST

He allegedly killed his wife and two young sons,
so he could be with another woman, so the
No Divorce Policy enforced by his employer
clearly is a motive for the murders.

Flag this comment

7.

B. McLeod
Nov 4, 2009 6:51 PM CST

I think #3 is close to the mark on this one.  It wasn’t because this guy was employed there, but because he bought into the doctrine.  There are a number of these cases every year, where people with these anti-divorce views terminate their domestic issues by murder, in the apparent belief that such is morally superior.  I have also read of instances where the anti-abortion views have led young women to murder their baby shortly after birth, in the apparent belief that such is morally superior to abortion.  The church groups that are teaching this material need to put it in context by occasionally reminding their members that murder is also immoral and wrong.

Flag this comment

8.

Art S
Nov 5, 2009 8:33 AM CST

I would think that the reflection a divorce would leave on his family would be a larger motivation.  

I would think that the state’s excessive alimony/child support figures are about 50 times more likely to be of significant motivation than a non-existent “no divorce clause.”  The only mention of divorce in the JMM handbook is in reference to being sure to update your dependent’s insurance information upon a divorce settlement.

I feel that Mirabelli should be disbarred, if nothing else because he’s a complete moron.  He’s attempting to pass off a money-grab as a desire to punish those who should have known.

1.  He’s introduced “facts” (such as the no-divorce clause) that don’t exist.
2.  He has sullied the memory of his cousin, whom he, in a “holier-than-thou” manner, claims to be defending.  The very memory he claims he’s trying to protect.
3.  He has failed to make any attempt at calling out the professionals (the Columbia Police) who were brought into the equation about a month before the murders, instead choosing to vilify computer geeks with no training in forensics for not “figuring out” that Coleman was behind the whole thing.

About the only thing he’s done that hasn’t demonstrated ignorance is point the finger at a controversial figure, Joyce Meyer (who, by the way, does not run Joyce Meyer Ministries).  He has successfully navigated the wave of misinformation about the ministry, all to support his cau$e.

His cousin, Shari, had been very proud of her work through Joyce Meyer Ministries.  He’s taking what she worked for, slathering it with mud and garbage, and dumping it in the trash. Shari’s mother should be so proud of her nephew.

And yet we wonder why the average American puts Lawyers just above child molesters on the likeability scale?

Maybe we’re the morons…

Flag this comment

Add a Comment

We welcome your comments, but please adhere to our comment policy.

Commenting has expired on this post.